Chapter 175: Drama Queen

“Why did we visit Onacona first?” Travis asked as he and Will walked up the winding road.

“I didn’t want word to reach her that I might be coming. She values her privacy enough to kill anyone that crosses an imaginary line in the sand. We literally caught her with her pants down.” Will said. “And it was still a nasty fight just to disengage.”

“Hmm.” Travis mused.

“And you never wanna do the easy thing first. Do the hard thing first while you’ve still got the energy.” Will said.

“You sure this is gonna be easy?” Travis asked, glancing up the winding road, designed so that each switchback gave a new vantage of the castle of bone ahead of them. Allowing them to take in how much bigger it was getting.

“I gotta hunch.” Will said, “Did you see how big the signs were that Onacona placed threatening tresspassers?”

“Those were placed by other Climbers.” Travis said, shaking his head.

“Exactly. Now compare Onacona’s complete absence of a sign with THAT sign!” Will pointed at Mordaine’s castle in the distance, with the skull-turrets and the ominous storm randomly releasing a bolt of dramatic lightning.

KABOOM!

For an instant, the rows of skulls decorating the castle were brought into stark relief by the flash of light.

“Onacona relies on word of mouth and a 100% kill rate to be left alone. Mordaine communicates, like a puffed-up bird. It isn’t much but it’s leagues ahead of the huntress.”

“So why are we walking?” Travis asked.

“Different strokes to survive different faefolk,” Will said. “Oh wow, look at that,” Will said, pointing to the castle, where a previously hidden torrent of rain created a dark shadow that hung off the side of the castle in a visually pleasing, if ominous, way.

“I don’t get it.”

Will snagged Travis’s shoulder and brought his ear in close.

“The guy is obviously proud of his castle. Appreciate it, you bastard. He’s selling the experience.” Will whispered into Travis’s ear. “That’s why we’re walking.”

“oh. OH!” Travis said, dropping his fist into his palm.

Travis didn’t say anything for a few minutes, long enough to slowly pretend to get anxious, building believable tension the castle marched closer, until the tension started bubbling out his mouth.

“Will, are you sure about this? I think I saw…things moving in the windows.” Travis asked.

“I’m sure,” Will said, playing along and taking the role of the idiot leader too determined to know better. “I need Mordaine to hear what I have to say. It’s critical to the future of this Floor…Probably.”

“Man, I dunno, seems like a REAL bad idea to willingly approach a castle made of bones.” Travis said, laying it on thick. “I just want to get home to my girlfriend.”

Will cast him a curious glance.

Travis shrugged.

“You remember her right boss? Mabel?” Travis said with expectant eyes.

Screw you.

“…Yeah, I remember her. We’ve gotta make sure you get home safe so you two can ‘build a life’ together.” Will hoped Travis heard the air quotes in his tone.

“That’s why this job is giving me the creeps, Will. What if I never make it back to my dear, sweet Mabel? This castle feels like it’s just waiting to swallow us whole and use our flesh as binding agent to stick our bones to the wall. Can’t we just, I don’t know, send a letter or something?” Travis demaded.

“No, Mordaine deserves to hear this in person. Mabel…Isn’t that the girl with the dead tooth whose breath smells like a rotting skunk?”

“You’re thinking of some other girl. My Mabel smells like lilacs.”

“She smells like whatever you want,” Will muttered under his breath.

After about an hour of pretending to be afraid of the castle and taking shots at each other, Will and Travis arrived at the gate, which seemed to be wood carved and painted to match the bones studding the wall.

How many of the actual bones are fake, too? Will wondered, scanning the wall. Sadly, he didn’t have the experience with massive piles of sun-bleached bone to tell which were painted wood and which weren’t.

Will craned his neck to study the castle that seemed to loom over them like a man intimidating someone shorter than himself.

The angle of the wall, or just those eaves? Will wondered to himself.

A whipcrack was accompanied by a harsh cry of pain and the rattle of chains. A moment later, the gate began to rise.

A massive warrior in black armor with flaming red eyes rode a lovely black stallion nearly twice Will’s height at the shoulder.

That’s a workhorse. A pretty one, but still.

You saw them here and there outside the tower, where they were used for their ability to draw a plow, cart, or work a pump.

Mostly by people below level 15, who didn’t have enough Strength or Abilities to do the work themselves.

…Wonder where he got it? How does it deal with the Miasma? Does it have a Relic? A Class? Is it some kind of shapeshifter?

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Honestly, I’m far more intrigued by the horse than I am it’s rider.

The lumbering rider with flaming eyes and spiky black armor unsheathed a thick, swooping sword with an odd handle, hefting it with menacing deliberation as the horse meandered towards them…Ominously.

I don’t think the horse could navigate those switchbacks, Will thought, glancing behind them. If they broke and ran now, they would scramble and run downhill, outmaneuvering the mass of muscle on the tight turns, arriving back at Bakton’s Keep with an exciting story of harrowing survival.

Everything about this place was designed to look scary, but it offered easy means of escape.

What a nice fellow.

“Mortal, what foolishness bids thee to cast your bones upon my lord’s whims?”

Ooh, double meaning. ‘Cast bones’ meaning roll the dice and the more literal interpretation of getting his bones stuck to the wall.

“I’d like to invite him to attend a little get-together between the great powers of the Floor tomorrow. May I come in and deliver this invitation in person?”

“…You’re kidding.”

“No?” Will said.

“In all the time I have been guarding this gate, none have offered such a ridiculous excuse for their presence, and none have passed me, The Black Gate Guardian!”

“The gate is white.” Will said.

“I am black,” The fiery-eyed figure said, motioning to himself. “I have decided: My Lord’s throne will not be bothered by your trifles. You will be added to the wall!” The armored menace reached behind him and pulled out a charcoal-black pole, clicking it into the handle of the strange ‘sword’, making it into a polearm.

Oh, that’s cool.