Chapter
3 – Results of Lost Hope
After his long travels, Claudius arrives
at the site of the tower to find that an entrance to it jutting out of the
ground is surrounded by beastmen and strange black skeleton vampires that have
little to no skin on their bones set up in the battle ruined campsite that
surrounds the site.
“You are welcome inside,” a beastman
says.
Despite not being attacked by the beastmen,
Claudius takes advantage of their passivity to kill them with three large swipes
of his whip. He winches after the attack because of his injury from the vampire
lord and remembers what the woman said before offering up the pain the penance
and going down the stairs to enter the upside down tower. The stairs down are a
crumbled mess with dirt slowly dripping down like an hourglass as if the structure
will collapse if broken in the right place. Further down, Claudius enters the first
room. This room contains ruined what must’ve been beautiful statues, paintings,
furniture, and more. These ruined objects are being cleaned and fixed by serfs,
and just like the beastmen on the surface, these ones don’t mind Claudius' presence.
One of them bows to Claudius then says,
“Welcome to our castle. Please, do not mind our appearance and make yourself at
home. Do you need first aid? We have many doctors that can help you.”
The beastman’s honest question
about his health gives Claudius pause before he stabs it with the end of his
whip to silently kill it. This method is the way by which Claudius slays every
single serf and vampire in this castle with a few small fights that end in
seconds here and there. Claudius does a thorough cleaning of this castle hoping
to find a vampire lord or someone to tell him where the center of the tower is,
but he doesn’t find any. It then occurs to him that he let his zealotry get to
him and did not see the obvious opportunity.
“It wouldn’t be a sin to take
advantage of their hospitality so I can find the center of the tower,” Claudius
silently says to himself before realizing another thing. “Guardian angel, my guardian
dear. My grandfather’s guardian angel led him through his trials to his fate,
his wife, and the only serfs who could redeem themselves. Will you not show me
the way as well?”
Waiting in silent prayer gives
Claudius no answers so he assumes he is where he is meant to be and that his chosen
course of action is correct. When he travels further down into the tower, he
finds himself in another castle, but this is more like a small town. Every
large room contains something different. Some are taverns, bakeries, and restaurants,
while others are homes and even churches. To his surprise, the churches
practice the same true Catholic faith that he does and there doesn’t appear to
be any sign of sin or misdeeds, however, he is still uneased by the sight of
the beastmen, skeletal vampires, and other vampires who go about their daily
business as if they weren’t monsters living in a destroyed castle. Reconcentrating
his efforts on his task, he goes up to a human serf who is selling clothes that
he is making.
Claudius asks him, “Might you know
where the lord of this castle is?”
“Dead and in the ground where he
belongs. Were you hoping to kill him yourself?” the serf answers.
“I was.”
“Well, there’s nothing evil in this
tower anymore, friend. The serfs have risen up in every castle in this tower,
killed the lords, and now we live here in relative peace.”
“Relative?”
“Relative because fights will
sometimes break out and the Corpus may lose themselves to their sinful ways,
but I think we’re doing better than one would expect.”
“A Corpus? Those creatures of
legend are here?”
“You’ve surely passed several by.
There are no true vampires in this area. Not anymore.”
“I’ve been attacked by vampires in
this area and my holy whip has killed them.”
“If you know the legends, then you know
that the Corpus die when God allows them to and when their penance has been
paid, so they can enter Heaven. This is a tragedy really. I assume that’s why
you’re all beat up?”
“Yes, and it’s why I doubt that the
Corpus are here.”
“I can’t help that and can only
assure you that what the Corpus do is outside of their will and they helped us destroy
the last of the lords. They even destroyed the blasphemous magic in here that
allowed those who used it to teleport.”
“I thought Saint Nevar destroyed
that when he destroyed the tower.”
“He did, but the power to make portals
still existed within the tower since it all fell to the ground. Now, thanks to
the serfs, that power is forever lost.”
“Why did the serfs rebel?”
“Because of Saint Nevar’s and Saint
Josiah’s example. They inspired us to rebel.”
“Then why also did the serfs rebel
against the Church?”
“We haven’t. It’s just that we’re rebelling
against those in Church that take advantage of us and think of serfs as nothing
more than irredeemable creatures, which is ironic because of the saints who were
serfs and Saint Raven who was a Corpus.”
Finding no way to argue with the
serf’s point, Claudius wonders what to say next for a few seconds.
“Who runs this mess of castles then
and how is it still together?”
“The most powerful of serfs that
led the assault on the lords. You’ll find them a few castles down. As for
keeping it together, it probably has to do with the original magic that kept it
together and maybe even the will of God since it’s so improbable that it’s
still together.”
Hearing that it’s God’s will that
this tower be together ignites Claudius’ anger since it sounds like blasphemy to
him, but he holds his rage in a way that doesn’t show his rage on his face or body
language. He then thanks the serf before moving down to visit the leaders of the
serfs. On his way there, the two other castles he passes through are filled
with similar scenes to the last with one castle having schools and libraries
and the second having farms and bakeries. It is then that Claudius’ resolve
wavers as a young child comes up to him and asks him if he needs a doctor and food
since his condition is obvious to this child. This child is also part wolf, which
shows Claudius that the serfs have been here long enough to reproduce. In
his mind and the mind of some of the others in the Church, it is an abomination
for beastmen to reproduce despite them still being considered men and having
the same rights as men, assuming the place they’re living in isn’t biased against
them.
“No, I’m fine,” Claudius says to
the boy.
The boy doesn’t appear to believe
him until he says, “Okay. Hey, how can I look as cool as you? Did you get that
look by being a knight of the Church?”
For some reason, a beastman turns
to look at Claudius at the hearing of this then runs away deeper into the
tower. The beast’s suspicious behavior causes Claudius to chase after it until he
finds himself at a dead end that happens to be a graveyard. Many gravestones
litter this room with inscriptions that note some of these people as the ones
that fought for the serfs’ freedom while others are noted as being victims of
the vampires and even the Church. Seeing that there’s no way out of this room,
Claudius feels out the walls and then the graves to try to find a possible hidden exit.
The boy even more curious about Claudius than Claudius is about the
beastman follows him into the graveyard to watch him until he becomes impatient
and approaches him again.
He says, “What are you looking for,
sir?”
“Nothing that should concern you,”
Claudius answers.
“You look like you’re looking for
secrets. Let me see if I can help. I found a chicken in a wall once. Don’t know
why it was there, but I heard the lord that had the castle I found it in loved
eating chickens so much that he had to hide his excess stock of it in all sorts
of places.”
Ignoring what the boy said,
Claudius thinks to himself about how to get him to leave.
“Hey, I found a secret staircase!
Is this what you’re looking for.”
The spot where the boy finds the staircase
is an ordinary grave that doesn’t stick out in any way. Seeing the staircase, Claudius
moves passed the boy and down the stairs without even thinking to thank him. This
secret reveals an area filled with the mangled bodies of serfs, humans, knights,
and other seemingly normal folks. Despite this being a horrid sight, part of Claudius
is sourly relieved that his suspicions that this tower still contains evil are
correct. Going further in, he finds several beastmen, Corpus, and humans
talking to each other.
“The Church has sent their soldiers
to kill us! I told you they were going to!” one of them says.
“Maybe this is a misunderstanding.
Did you send out your allies to scare them away again? You know that you’ll
only be met with force and prolong this misunderstanding,” another beastman counters.
“That was for a good reason.”
“And what reason may that be? So you
can continue with these experimentations that you inherited from the lords? I thought
that we promised to move beyond this.”
“And I thought that you said I can
continue them as a last resort because of the knowledge that would be lost.”
“That wasn’t me. That was my weakened
side talking.”
“All the Corpus say the same thing,
but it’s no matter. The lords here had an amazing last resort plan among many
and we need to take advantage of it. We can’t let their research go to waste.”
“Their research that forces people
to combine into a singular body? It’s an abomination.”
“You know how prideful the lords
were and how they hated each other. They had a plan to separate themselves once
they no longer needed to be combined. Granted, it was in its early stages, but
you can see that I’ve been getting good results in undoing the beast modifications
they put on people and those they have combined with others.”
“Most aren’t well in the mind after
your experiments.”
“Okay, okay, but it’s something
that we must make a decision on right now. If I explain any more details of the
experiments, then we’ll be here all day. The Church’s soldiers have already
killed the guards on the surface and those in the uppermost castle. Now, after
everything that I’ve explained and the enemy banging at our gates, tell me that
you agree with me.”
“If the Church sent their soldiers
here, then we’d be seeing more than just one and there would be more chaos.”
“Tch. You dolt. You don’t understand
what is happening!”
During this conversation, Claudius
is unsure of how to act while listening in on what the enemy knows of him. His
enemy is clear and in front of him, however, he is outnumbered and in no shape
to take on so many at once, especially with the Corpus among them. The side who
is on the side of the Corpus probably wouldn’t appreciate it if he killed the beast
experimenter even though they are against each other, so that option is out of
Claudius’ mind. Even so, looking around at all the scientific experimentations
done on both the living and dead here that mocks God’s creation begs him to act
sooner rather than later. Thinking that this was the same challenge that his
grandfather faced, Claudius silently prays for bravery, strength, and bravery
before leaping into action. He kills several beastmen with an efficient use of
his whip and continues to kill multiple of them as he takes advantage of their
surprise.
“I told you they’re here to kill us!”
the experimenter says before working some kind of strange machinery. “I have no
choice but to activate it as it is. You can thank me later.”
“No, wait!” the Corpus says to no
avail.
A dark force comes out of the
machine and shakes the very tower. It begins to suck in everything around it
and seeing as how it is breaking apart the tower, Claudius assumes that it will
destroy it and begins to leave. On his way out, he sees the boy that was
following him get sucked in the direction of the dark force. At that moment, it
was as if time was moving slowly. Claudius saw the boy’s terrified expression and
saw him reaching out for him. A part of his soul tugs at him to go save the boy, but
he thinks that living the life of a beastman is a curse, so he abandons him.
Even while leaving, Claudius doesn’t
help anyone who is struggling not to get sucked in or fall victim to the
collapsing tower. In fact, he pushes passed them and uses them to pull himself
up while they fall. Eventually, Claudius makes his way out of the tower. He falls
to the ground out of exhaustion and struggles to even stand. He then watches
the staircase that goes into the tower slowly begin to sink down. Part of him
remembers the boy and thinks about him again as he feels that he could’ve saved him.
“No, I couldn’t have been able to,”
Claudius says to the rogue thought in his head.
As the staircase continues to sink,
Claudius can see beastmen, Corpus, and other human serfs desperately trying to
fit through the narrow hole that none can seem to fit through. The poor people
beg Claudius to help them, but he just sits there thinking to himself that they
deserve it.
“Pray for mercy because your death
is near Repent of your sin of rebelling against the Church,” Claudius says to
them.
Claudius can hear the people’s screams
until he hears a loud crushing noise. He lays down before thanking God for his
victory and his purpose being fulfilled. After getting up, he limps as he
begins his way back home only to be stopped by the ground shaking again.
“I knew it wouldn’t be that easy,” Claudius
says.
Ready for a fight, Claudius takes
out his whip, however, when his enemy emerges from the ground where the tower
was, he finds that his whip will probably not be enough. What emerges is an
enormous beast that is a mile long and the size of a house along with some of
the ruins of the tower. It has the body of a wolf, a half wolf, half fly face, the
arm of an ape, a claw for another arm, and the wings of two different kinds of
insect. The body is split in two by two different mouths and its lower half is
that of a snake. Finally, hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of humanoid
figures can be seen writhing around in it appearing to try to break out and faint
moans and screams emanating from its body.
“What kind of ungodly abomination
are you?” Claudius says.
“We are the result of not leaving
us alone and your persecution,” the creature says in many voices, “Whereas the
Church was uncharitable to us, we have been charitable to you in letting you
know this before you die.”
“God will not let me fail. To kill
you is to achieve my destiny. Guardian angel, grandfather, please grant me strength.”
To Claudius’ dismay, his whip can
hardly do any damage to the beast and is run over and seemingly killed by it
soon after. In his half dead state, a light enters his mind to wake it up.
“I’m sorry, grandfather. I’ve
failed you,” Claudius says.
“No, you haven’t. You still have a
chance,” Nevar says.
“Is that you, grandfather?”
“I’m here for you, Claudius.”
“Hurry and grant me your
intercession so I can live up to your legacy.”
“You don’t have to live up to my
legacy in the way that you think.”
“What do you think?”
“What do you think I mean? Everyone
has their own unique God-given purpose. My father achieved his after he died
and I did by being pushed into it by God. You have a different one and I’m
sorry to say that it’s changed because of your failure, but there’s still a
chance to make amends.”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t
done anything wrong.”
A second light enters his mind, which
turns into his guardian angel.
The angel says, “It is true that
you were meant to destroy the castle to finally seal away the magic and tainted
scientific research within, but you were also meant to save the serfs within
and bring them back to the Church and renew their faith in God.”
“What? Why couldn’t you tell me
this before?”
“You were shown it and various
people gave you good advice. You were shown the goodness of the serfs, given
the advice to ask for help from the vampire hunters in your family’s hunting
party, and told by a priest that certain people have certain roles in life and
not everything harder to do is always right.”
“Then leave me to die so I may
serve my penance in Purgatory or let me live in pain for as long as God will allow
for the same reason.”
“That will not be necessary if you do
what God actually wills. You have another chance if you follow my son’s example
who is doing his part correctly,” Nevar says.
“My father? If you say so. I won’t
let you down again, grandfather.”
Nevar smiles and then says, “I know you
won’t, my grandson.”
Waking up from his injuries,
Claudius finds himself with the other members of his family’s hunting party.
His wounds are being dressed while others pray over him. They thank God that he’s
awake, able to stand, and limp around. He makes his way to one of the leaders
of the hunting party, or rather, they meet halfway after Claudius says that he
wants to see him as his reason for not resting.
“You should be resting, sir,” the
hunting party leader says.
“I will, but not yet. You must know
of the massive abomination out there,” Claudius says.
“Oh, we know. It’s been out there
for three days destroying towns, farms, and attacking cities on a rampage. We
already have an army with siege weapons setting a trap for it. It’ll be dead
before you know it especially since it bit off more than it can chew when it
attacked Rome.”
“But what you don’t know is that it’s
my fault that the beast is loose.”
“We figured you had to do something
with it when we found your barely alive body near the ruins of the tower.”
“No, I could’ve stopped it from happening
altogether. The beastmen were not allied with the vampires nor was there a
single vampire among them. In fact, there were Corpus there. One of them got
scared and activated a machine tainted by dark magic that sucked in both the
dead and the living to create that creature. What that beastman did is indeed terrible, but it’s not like his fears were unfounded as I proved him right
by carving a bloody path to him.”
“There’s no time to worry about
that. I’m sure you have some painful penance in mind for yourself to make up
for it. I suggest that you don’t do it. Do something simpler like praying that rosary
the size of your arm for a while and promise God not to ever do something like
that again.”
“I’ve already talked to my
grandfather and my guardian angel who told me the error of my ways. I told them
that I won’t let them down.”
“Then there’s nothing more to say. Let’s
just keep this between ourselves and not tell anyone. Well, tell no one besides
your confessor. We’ll get you back to your father soon. I’m sure he hasn’t
stopped praying for your safety since you left.”
Sure enough, when Claudius returns
to Rome damaged by the beast he unleashed, his father meets him halfway to
hug him. Claudius tells his father what happened in secret and this doesn’t
change his father’s attitude towards him.
“You aren’t mad at me?” Claudius
asks.
“No, because I know that you’ll pick
yourself up and become a better man. It was also good to hear that my father
said to follow my example despite me being such a klutz. I can already see it
in your eyes,” his father says.
“I’m…I’m sorry for everything I
said about you. About calling you a coward and…for being such a foolish son.”
“Don’t worry about it. Come, you
must get your rest. I’m getting a celebration ready for-Oh! I’ve spoiled the
surprise! I’m sorry!”
“A party? For me?”
“Yes, to celebrate your coming back.”
“I…I guess I shouldn’t complain or say
what is best for myself. I’ve been doing that for too long and dressing it as
God’s will. Thank you for everything, father.”
Claudius embraces his father and
looks forward to the future having learned from his mistakes. Once he gets
better, he cleans up his appearance, and even though he is still a hunter, he
vows to do what is right no matter how hard or easy it may be.
The End
