Kingsley Family/Erik/The Covenant

Camel

Erik rode a camel across the deserts of Irdalni, He knew he had to get back to Oritolon and fast, and not just because of the desert sun. The Republic was counting on him, the gold in his pockets had been stolen by the desert highwaymen as he crossed through the badlands, but they didn't search the camel's pockets. Or rather the camel's saddlebags. 2000 gold could pay for a lot of repairs and soldiers for the army, and he knew it needed to get in the hands of Aveline and the other knights to help defend the realm from whatever came after Arak Castle.

The heat bore down on him and the camel which he had named Humpus, after the large hump on the creature's back which Erik had learned carried water for several weeks. Erik himself was nearly delirious from his own lack of water, as he had already drank what he had, forgetting that "Carrying a week's worth of water" only applied to the camel. Humpus carried along without issue while Erik lay draped over his back panting heavily, sunburned and blistered from the heat.

As he managed to lift his head up he saw across the horizon a small structure in the distance. He could only barely make it out a small primitive structure.

"Huh." He muttered to himself as he collapsed from exhaustion into Humpus's fur. "Probably just a mirage... Just... ignore it... Humpo..." Erik trailed as he faded out.

Erik awoke to a sharp thud against his whole body as something huge hit him. He was wrong about that however, as it was him that was being pulled to ground. He spit out a mouthful of dust as he came to, having fallen from Humpus's back into the desert dust. The camel merely stood there idly, disinterested in the entire affair.

As Erik looked around drearily he found himself surprised to be at the front steps of a small structure hewn of gray stone, sandswept steps leading up to and open entrance. A sign with some words Erik was too delirious to read marked one of the outer walls.

"Wait fer me here Humphrey..." He mumbled as he began to crawl his way up the steps towards the structure in the hopes of escaping the damnable sun. He collapsed about halfway up to catch his breath, and as he looked to his right he jolted at the sight of a skeleton collapsed on the steps, hand outstretched towards the top of the stairs where the structure's entrance lay. As he jolted back the other way he crashed directly into another skeleton in a similar pose. Erik shouted and a sudden rush of fear struck him as he gathered the extra strength to get to his feet and stumble up the stairs, falling into the entrance, bursting open a black oak door as he collapsed inside.

The light from outside showed a simple rough hewn room with rotted wooden benches set up down the center of the floor. The rest of the room was cast in eerie shadow, and the room was cold as if the sun could not penetrate the stone walls of this bizarre structure. But the light from the sun outside did reveal something. Erik shouted as he saw the benches were filled with more human skeletons. He fell backwards onto the cold stone floor and buried his aching and spinning head into knees. "It's just a mirage..." he muttered.

And then somewhere in the darkness, Erik heard the voice speak out clear as day.

"Is it someone new?"

Candle

"Wake up mortal."

Erik groaned as he lifted his head up into the ground, his head pounding and flesh singed from the desert sun. Everywhere hurt. And it was dark, Erik could not see anything.

"Oh dang!" Erik exclaimed feeling around on the cold stone floor frantically. "I'm blind! Someone help I'm blind! The desert blinded me!"

A candle lit a few feet in front of him, and was set gently on the floor by robed hand which retracted from the radius of the tiny light. "You're not blind, idiot. You're just made of living tissue. Those two squishy balls in your skull are so rudimentary, it's amazing people have survived as long as they have."

"Who are you!" Erik called out, hesitant to press forward through the darkness toward the candle light.

"I should be the one asking you that, mortal. You're the one who barged in on our services. You really caused a scene you know, some of the parishioners in hysterics. A real revival if you know what I mean!"

Erik didn't.

"I don't." Erik admitted.

"Of course not," the voice in the darkness replied in a somewhat resigned tone. "I guess your brain is rudimentary too."

Erik reflexively frowned and crawled across the floor towards the light.

"You know mortal, you're the first living thing I've seen in a while. Putting your gross overly-limiting biology aside, what are you doing here?"

"Uh..." Erik replied unsure how to answer. "I kinda just walked in here. I guess I crawled more than walked. It's hot outside?"

"See mortal, you've got to get rid of that body. Look what it's doing to you. You don't even have control over your own actions because your skin peels just from existing. I can help you with that if you want."

Erik shrunk in the light of the candle. "Actually I like my body and skin and stuff. I'd like to keep it if possible."

"Well suit yourself. You'll grow out of it eventually." replied the voice in the darkness. "Since you're here..." The voice trailed off further into the black. "Might as well make yourself useful. Pick up that candle, mortal."

Not knowing what else to do, Erik obeyed, wrapping shaking fingers around the red wax of the candlestick. "Come on then." Said the voice in the darkness. "Please tell me those legs aren't for show." Erik picked himself up and limped forward feeling his way to a wall which he leaned on as he followed the distant voice which kept chattering away.

"Now you'll need to keep up for this next part. And I don't just mean physically. As a living human, you actually present an interesting opportunity. That is if your brain is actually worth anything. In here."

Erik followed the voice into another dark room and as he approached he saw the figure the voice belonged to, obscured by a black robe and the shadows surrounding them. In their hand he held out an open book which Erik leaned over curiously.

"There are great secrets in the world, mortal. Hidden, lost, or buried in the mountains, sands, and dark forests of this world. What if you were to be granted some of this knowledge, what if you sought it out?"

"Baked fish casserole?" Erik said quizzically as he inspected the recipe displayed on the page.

"What?" The voice in the darkness said confused as they flipped the book around and looked at it. "Oh damn it all. That's the wrong book." The figure snapped the book closed and Erik saw a boney hand set the book down on a nearby shelf and pulled another book this one older looking and dust spilled out as the figure opened it. "No, fool, mysterious symbols of unholy power!"

"Their secret power could be yours mortal, but first you must seek it out and spread this dark knowledge of the Unholy Lord across the Continent."

"Oh I don't really like... do quests."

Erik heard the clatter of bone against bone as the figure moved their skeletal hand up to their hooded head.

Covenant

"So..." Said the Voice in the Darkness. "What do you think?"

"I dunno..." Erik answered hesitantly after an explanation of the unholy covenant (and a handful of insults about human biology and anatomy). "I mean some extra knowledge about everything that's going on seems pretty good but... I don't know. An Unholy Covenant sounds pretty like... bad I think."

"That's because the humans have told lies to you for years about the undead being evil monsters! Of course it's going to sound bad when you look at it that way!" the Voice in the Darkness replied exasperatedly.

"Well yeah but... Don't a lot of undead eat the flesh of the living and stuff?" Erik said rubbing his chin in contemplation.

"Yes and? Don't you humans do that too? I've heard about your 'Outer Tilog', they even make a sport of it! Besides, undead don't just have to eat living flesh. We can eat other things you know. Some of us are even vegetarian!"

"Hm... those are good points." Erik replied considering the Voice's argument seriously.

"So you'll help recover lost knowledge and secrets of the human realms?"

"Hm... Let me think on it."

"Gah! If you must." the Voice in the Darkness said snapping the book closed. "But his Unholy Plan will continue with or without you. If you wish to gain the powerful rewards of service to his Unholiness, you will act! With all haste!"

"Hm... alright! Well I guess I'm going to head off now, thanks for talking to me. It was nice to make a new friend at least." Erik stood up and dusted himself off. He already felt better from some rest. He took a step backwards towards the door.

"Technically, I don't speak, I don't have vocal chords and my voice is projected through dark unholy magick. Also we're not friends and you're a moron."

"Oh uh. Alright then. Okay bye!"

Erik backed away quickly and when he had left the candle radius he turned and ran out the door back to where Humphrey was waiting patiently. Erik rushed down the steps to get away from whatever spooky magic was at home in that strange place, but tripped on a skeleton halfway down the stairs and tumbled into the sand, hurting even more as he fell upon raw sunburned skin. He spit out the dust in his mouth and climbed to his feet, jumping on the camel and hurrying off towards the Citadel in the distance.

Coin

Erik leaned forward and felt the wind rush across his face.  He clicked Humpus's reins again and gave a "hyah" as he rode through the streets of the town of Oritolon, as he made his way to the Citadel.  He knew he had an important duty to accomplish, and he would make all the haste he could.

The camel, however, was not in a particular hurry, and Erik found them going at a modest pace, despite his attempts to the contrary.  Erik sighed and continued leisurely along the city road to the Citadel.

The door to the Governor's Hall burst open as Erik, huffing and wheezing from running as fast as he could up the many flights of stairs in the Citadel's halls. Sparkling waxed marble tiles reflected bright sunlight from the large windows at the tower's top.

"I made it!" He proclaimed, as all the courtiers in the room stopped and stared at him. Erik took a few quick steps forward to cross the room, pulling out a large sack of gold coins.  "Governor Caravanthian!  I have brought forth additional funds from Alowca to help ward off the-"  Erik was cut off when his foot slipped on the newly cleaned floor of the chamber, he fell to the ground, dropping the sack which spilled a thousand coins out over the floor.

"Ah beans."  Erik said quickly trying to pick up coins one by one and put them back into the bag while a crowd of confused courtiers looked on.

"I think I got all of them." Erik said after 25 minutes had passed, awkwardly handing the bag over to a chamberlain who shook his head.  "Uh if anyone finds any more here just like, on the floor or something, it's part of the like money from Alowca that's supposed to help pay for the defense or something.  I'm not sure what it's supposed to be used for I think that's up to the Governor.  Unless the coins you find were actually here before I spilled them in which case I guess they wouldn't be a part of that money.  Maybe someone had a hole in their pocket or something?  If that happens I guess maybe it's best if you try to find who it belongs to.  Or I guess you could give it to the Governor to help pay to defend the city considering there's a horde of undead outside the walls trying to kill everyone.  But I guess you can do what you want with it."

Erik glanced around and saw the rest of the chamber was still staring at him confusedly.

"Um okay well I guess that's it.  I think I'll go anywhere else but here!"  He quickly departed the chamber and closed the door behind him, putting his head in his hands over the embarrassing delivery of the money.  "Well, at least I got it here I guess." He reminded himself.

Erik sighed as he mad his way back to his quarters.  He was exhausted.  His travel from Alowca had left him burned, exhausted, and with several falls.  All he wanted at this point was to take a long deep nap.

​​​​​​​Which he did upon his arrival at his quarters, though not so restful perhaps, as dark dreams invaded his sleep.

Case

Erik grumbled quietly to himself as he opened the door to the library.  It was earlier than he usually got up, some noise from out in the streets outside the Citadel woke up him.  He had thought he had gotten used to the hustle and bustle of Oritolon's streets compared to his previous quiet life in Naan Forest, but he supposed the commotion proved otherwise.  Erik never had been a morning person, but today he was feeling extra irritable on account of the early rise and the noise from outside.

He stumbled into the library, a cramped and labyrinthine set of rooms covered in loose books and scrolls.  The window blinds had not been opened for the morning so Erik grabbed one of the lanterns on the wall by the door and lit it.  He once made the mistake of using a regular candle, but was quickly corrected by the curmudgeonly librarian Harald, a barrel-chested man whose hairline had receded so far that all that remained was the braided ponytail hanging from the back of his head.

"This whole place will go up like a light!" Harald had said while snatching the candle from Erik's hand and whacking him with a nearby scroll case.  Erik was pretty sure Harald wasn't supposed to hit knights, but the man had been right after all.  Better a closed light like a lantern than an open flame in a place like this.

Erik glanced around surprised to see a few figures shuffling through the library aisles, but then became confused as to why he would be shocked to see people this early.  After all, he himself had never been here this early, and he had no idea truly how busy or popular a destination the Citadel library might be at this hour.  He watched them for a moment noticing their lethargic demeanor.  Erik couldn't blame them.  He was certainly lethargic this morning too.  He shuffled past the circulation desk and the old grump of a librarian Harald behind it.

"Good Morning Harald." Erik muttered.  The man answered with a long guttural groan.  Harald could be like that sometimes, he was kind of a jerk, Erik thought.

Erik walked through the dim aisles himself, trying to find a free table.  He did pass one that had someone passed out limp over the table, and someone was even sleeping in the floor.  That's definitely a mood I understand. Erik thought to himself rubbing his eyes again.

It was then he stepped on something soft, he looked down to see a long shape.  Glancing around he saw another person wandering around aimlessly nearby.  "Ah.  Excuse me, I think you dropped your scroll."  Erik called out.  The figure turned and tilted its head to the side as if it had barely heard him.

"I said you dropped your scroll." Erik repeated, leaning over to pick the item up.  It was when he did this that he realized that the soft object was not in fact a scroll and was actually a human arm.  He yelped and dropped the arm immediately, his heartbeat livening as fear began to set in.  As the figure approached him he got a better look and realized that this person had indeed dropped the object, as they had only one arm now reaching out towards Erik.  Torn lips on a pale, sunken face let out a deep groan as Erik bolted, running through the aisles trying to escape and avoiding any other terrifying figures.  "Help!  Help!" he cried several times, gaining the attention of more shambling people Erik realized then were walking dead.  Aw dang that was a bad idea, I can't even call for help!

He ran to the outside wall and ripped open the blinds on one of the windows in a panicked effort to escape before realizing that the library was on one of the Citadel's upper floors.  He stared down into the city below, once his eyes had recovered from the blast of morning sunlight.

He understood now what the noise that had woken him that morning was.

Hundreds and hundreds of undead mindlessly wandering the streets and devouring any hopeless soul that passed by them.  Erik heard a chorus of moans from deep within the dark corners of the library.

"Ah beans."