Chapter 10
It was dark. Pitch dark. Bartleby had been walking for days in near pitch darkness. This cursed fucking land. He was hungry, severely dehydrated, and still he did not stop. His one boon, his one saving grace in this Hell. Was his trusty silver lighter. He had had it almost all his life. Bartleby, his entire fate resting on this silver lighter. It flicked open and licked flame in the musty swampland he now trudged through. And then it was over. He stopped. He almost couldn't believe his eyes. He flicked his lighter closed. The swampland and forest opened up around him to a normally-coloured green field. "A-ha, yes, finally!" He ran along, overjoyed to be out of the Green Hell, now in a slightly less-green, much less Hellish place He followed the crags of the valley until he found a stream, and he fell to his knees and drank from it. With only a barricade blocking his path. And...people! Real people! Not animals or Witches or any manner of cursed things, but Guards. What looked to be about 15 or 16 of them. No matter. As soon as they learned he was a Knight of the Temple of Rone, he was sure they would let him pass with no problem. "Hail!", Bartleby sputtered and waved with a smile, opening his Knight's mask. "Here! I see there is finally civilization here! Allow me to explain. I am a Knight of the Temple of Rone. I would like to meet with your finest barkeep and your bustiest women, please!" The guards looked down from him on the barricade. And one laughed in his face. Then the other started laughing. Then, they started throwing fruits and vegetables at him. Bartleby was not stunned. Not even surprised. In fact, he didn't even flinch. Did not even really feel the need to hesitate in this moment. Oh, so that's how it's going to be. You picked a really bad day to do this. Bad for you. Can't control that. No, sir. I have nothing to do with that, I'm afraid. Nope. Not me. This was you. I just want you to remember that. You chose this. And Bartleby the Knight walked right up to that barricade full of armed guards. And slashed the entire foundation at its base, which was not hard as the whole thing was a fairly makeshift affair. There was a remaining 10 guards now surrounding him. Bartleby slashed the first one across the face and gouged his eye out. He stabbed the second one through the gut and took an ear, too. Didn't even clink swords with 'em. No hesitation. No mercy. He made a sideways slash to the next one and made short work of him, and finally clinked swords with one, and then another, now ganging up on him. And Bartleby made short work of them, too, slashing gut and chest and arms, and the remainders ran off, screaming bloody murder, and finally, the Work was done. And he stood, vindicated, and just for fun, cut the head off a dead body and decided to wear it around until he entered the vicinity of polite company. And along he trode, seemingly reinvigorated by fresh water and fresh blood. And as he trode past, merrily, he could almost swear he saw two people running toward the bloodshed. Two young men, one considerably taller than the other, who did not look like guards. And he paid it no mind and continued along his journey.
And finally, a building. A road. A small hamlet. No guards. No swords. "Good Gods above," he said aloud, and politely unfastened and dropped the head. "Finally! Finally!" He would have danced were he not wearing armor. He ran up the road ahead to the buildings. "Hello! Hello! I would like to meet your finest barkeep", and...Silence. Not a soul around. And then he began to smell smoke. And then he began to see it. Smoke but no fire. And what the Knight saw absolutely confounded him. What looked to be a Legion of Sinister Foes and Jackals, each wearing masks like Jack o' Lanterns and Goat's Heads and baring marks of the Beast, cackling joylessly yet cackling louder and louder, each mask and each cackle more sinister than the last. The truly sinister thing about these, mask-wearing mauraders, was that they seemed to be being carried by moving smoke, not just moving through the smoke, but moving with it, as if some dark spell were carrying it. And then, something dawned on Bartleby that actually made him quickly take his helmet off in a stupor and rub his eyes, sure that the mania of starvation and dehydration was playing tricks on his eyes. These marauders weren't just moving through the hamlet. They were Moving...backwards through the hamlet, being carried by smoke, cackling of it, and being carried backwards. Bartleby could not believe his eyes. As they moved backwards through the hamlet, they were setting each house and each tavern on fire, backwards. White flame, to blue, to orange, to yellow, and becoming one with the smoke again. A flame moving backwards. Bartleby clutched his amulet to Vicare. The one town, the one tavern, and the one place with fresh mead. Immediately he charged the smoke monsters, suddenly sure that if he were to die chasing this thing, it would be worth the price of knowing he didn't go on letting whatever this thing is, live. Bartleby, chasing a smoke monster, swinging his sword at nothing, inhaling deep, dark purple plumes of smoke in through his nostrils
