Path to Arcadia

Absorbing essence stones was not a difficult process. He simply grabbed one, securing it in his palm, and crushed it. The essence stone looked durable, but the moment pressure was applied, it shattered like it was brittle pottery. With a soft pop and a flash of copper light, the essence stone turned to dust.

After being harvested from a rift monster, the gathered essence would dissipate rapidly, becoming nothing more than an inert rock in about a day. Because of this inescapable fact, essence stones were incredibly valuable and hard to come by for any practitioner. 

After all, essence stones were the only way to develop your emblems. The moment he crushed the stone, essence flooded his body, funneling towards the single active node near his collarbone. 

It took only seconds for the emblem that was his holy orb to absorb all the essence upon which his emblem turned a shade darker.

Formally a dull grey, the basic emblem was slightly darker than before, still quite a way away from turning a full copper hue.

That was okay, though… He still had twenty-two essence stones left. With only one emblem to funnel all the essence into, it should be enough to push his holy orb emblem all the way to copper.

It was an exciting prospect. His first copper tier emblem. Heart beating loudly in his chest, he crushed one essence after another, his body feeling electrified as she directed all that essence into his only active node. After so many years of stagnation, the feeling of progress was exhilarating. 

By the twentieth, his node felt full to bursting. Heart thudding loudly, he crushed one more. He grimaced, feeling as though something was wriggling under his skin. Thankfully, the discomfort faded quickly. 

Grinning he peered down at his newly enhanced emblem. After one look, he thought he understood why he got that creepy feeling. His emblem for the holy orb had become slightly more intricate. His first node had successfully turned fully copper. Sitting inside his tent, Archivuald rolled his shoulders, a smile tugging at his lips.

A part of him had thought his progression might not follow convention, given the fact he had a tattoo from both deities. As it turned out, that was a baseless fear.

That realization was a huge weight off his shoulders. Having his first emblem reach copper tier was the first stage towards greatness, the first step to reach the top of the pecking order. That had never been a dream of his, but at this moment, it suddenly didn't seem so farfetched.

With two emblems, and twenty-four nodes, he had the potential to reach the peak. The rush of advancing an emblem was like nothing he had ever felt before. It was far better than drinking, or getting blitzed out in the Marla houses. 

It was invigorating. Why hadn't he gone rift hunting sooner, there was so much to be gained. He had always been curious what lay in the depths of the continent. That was the reason he had become an acolyte, to be the first to explore the hellish inner reaches. After being cast out by the order and proclaimed a heretic, that goal had fallen to the wayside.

But, perhaps it was time to pick it up once more. He had wallowed away in self recrimination for too long. It was about time he found a new purpose on his own. He didn't need the order to fulfil his goals. After being thrown out on his ass, he had been adrift for nearly two years.

Archivauld had no idea how he would accomplish something even the most powerful rift walker guilds could not, but he would do it. To raise himself from an outcast and bandit to the heights of legend. The thought made him chuckle to himself. He shook off the fanciful notions, forcibly dispelling the urge to commit untold carnage.

It was just as the pastor had always warned. Absorbing essence was both a blessing and a curse. More than one acolyte had charged headlong into danger, uncaring of their lives in the pursuit of essence. It was so prevalent, the term even had a name, power creep. 

Archivauld grunted to himself. The heights of hubris know no bounds. He had only awakened one node to copper, and he was already thinking of conquering a place that blade Cardinals had to tread lightly. 

He smiled. Well, as they say, go big or go home. Becoming a Cardinal wasn't a bad long-term goal, but he had to be realistic. Right now, he didn't even have a full sweet of powers.. 

Pushing aside his fanciful thoughts, Archivauld grabbed one of the last three essence stones. He could use them on his holy orb, but it would have diminishing returns now that the emblem was copper tier. 

He supposed he could also wait and see if he could acquire another emblem first. It was extremely unlikely, but who knew? This volcanic rift was turning quite lucrative. Only essence stones so far, but the monsters had been plentiful. Given their short shelf life, he couldn't sell essence stones at the market, but most rift walker corpses were valuable even after extracting their essence.

Sitting inside of his tent, Archivauld stared at the essence of stone in his hand for a few minutes, the dim glow lighting the sharp lines of his face in a copper sheen.

Until now, he had adamantly refused to use any essence on his dark side, refusing to funnel essence into the tattoo of the Dark god. Some small part of him had hoped that just maybe if he had ignored it, it would go away? It was a naive thought. Even after two years, the tattoo was still there in all of its hideous glory. 

All black eyes were close, six divine curses that he had refused to funnel essence into. Despite knowing they were abilities on par with divine blessings, he had adamantly refused to activate them.

Now he hesitated.

If he really wanted to reach such lofty goals, like becoming a Cardinal, and to survive and explore the inner expanse of the continent, he would need to use every tool at his disposal. What were his former conviction when he could die at any moment? His callused hand wrapped tightly around the copper hued essence stone, his heart racing as he stared at it.

It would be so easy. Just crush it, and one of the divine curses would be under his control. There was no telling what the curse would be, but one and all, they were powerful. 

His prior convictions aside, there were real risks to activating a divine curse.

Unlike divine blessings, the unholy curses had downsides. The 'gifts' they offered were usually considered more terrifying than the former, but they always came with troublesome drawbacks.

Hence the name, divine curse.

There were two main types of curses, active, which required the practitioner to activate the curse, and passive. The passive curses were the biggest headache, always being active from the moment you infused essence into them until you died.

This was one of the reasons Archivauld had hesitated for several years to infuse them. Well, and the fact that essence didn't exactly grow on trees. 

Given the risks, perhaps he should just awaken one of his divine curses? That's right, how bad could one be? Who knew? It could be just the thing to give him an edge if they ran into trouble when they went to harvest the rift nexus. 

Hoping he wasn't making a huge mistake, Archivauld clenching his fist. The essence stone in his right hand shattered. Stomach clenching, he funneled the essence towards one of the six closed eyes of the dark god. Its tentacles seemed to squirm under his skin as essence flooded into the dark emblem, flowing into the first of the divine curses.

Nothing happened for several moments, before the dark gods' far left eye opened. An unholy wail of delight filled his mind, a sound that sent waves of despair through his body. Even more alarming was the raspy voice that followed, the sound like a million souls in torment.

"Ahhhhh, there you are…. It's about time you accepted my gift. Come, my son, join the ranks of the Nether as its unholy champion," the dark prince said.

Blood trickled his‌ nose, the un words making his body convulse uncontrollably.

Archivald's body spasmed for several long seconds. Unable to control his body, he fell on his side.

It took a distressing amount of time before he regained control over his body. He gasped for breath, like a fish finally returned to the water. Archivauld frantically clutching at his chest, feeling as though he had stared true death in the face. A few simple sentences and he was on the brink of despair, feeling a terror he had never known.

Thankfully, that feeling of dread quickly faded, the ghastly words dissipating from his mind. All that was left was the single pitch black eye that was opened. It was like a small chasm to the gates of the abyss. Wiping blood from his nose, he sat up, gently running his finger along his collarbone and the incredibly intricate emblem branded into his skin.

The node was open, but as always, one had to unearth the power of even divine nodes for themselves. Time would tell what the divine curse would do. Given he was inside his small tent, right now was not the place to unearth its function. 

On the bright side, he could tell it was an active curse. 

Just like his holy orb, he got a sense of how much essence he would need to funnel into it to activate the emblem.

Unlike his holy orb, his new emblem felt like a bottomless pit. He would need to drain most of his reservoir to activate it. 

Well, so much for that… After that troubling experience, there was no way he would activate the other two divine curses right now. He was still more than a bit rattled from hearing that unholy voice in his mind. For all he knew, he might die if he didn't recover first before activating them.

Perhaps he would open another of his five remaining divine curses once he fully got a handle on the first.

In the meantime, he crushed the last two of his essence stones. The inner reaches of the leftmost eye of the nether prince was a dull grey, and didn't change at all with two infusions, not even turning slightly copper. It was expected. Divine curses, or their counterpart, took over ten times the essence as regular nodes to develop.

Even so, infusing the divine emblem was better than letting the last two essence stones go to waste.

Archivauld let out an exhausted breath. He felt drained despite the fact it had only a half hour of infusing. He patted the haft of the two-handed axe laying beside his bedroll, before climbing inside.

It was a mild comfort to know his weapon was close at hand if needed. It was a crude weapon, but it was all he had. Chipped and dented from overuse, it was heavy, not something most would expect from a tall spindly guy like himself. Calling it a war axe was a gross oversell. It would be better used to split wood than flesh these days.

When he was recruited by Yurlan and his crew, Archivauld had found the ax beside a grave.

He couldn't even remember the name on the stone of the poor sod that had been buried there. Just another casualty of the rifts.

There had been hundreds of graves, mostly from fools venturing into rifts and getting killed.

 He had needed a weapon for this caper, and this ax just felt right somehow. 

Plus, it was free. That dead guy didn't need it anymore. He couldn't exactly be picky when he only had a few silver chits to his name. 

The sound of heavy boots crunching on the snow disrupted his thoughts. 

"Hey, Arch, are you still awake?" came Yurlans gruff voice from just outside the tent.

"Ya, what is it Yurlan?" Archivauld asked tiredly.

"Parcival thinks he can see some firelight on the horizon. Someone else is in this rift with us," Yurlan said.

Pushing aside his bedroll, Archivald pulled open the tent flap, a gust of frigid air making him shiver. 

"What are we going to do?" Archivauld asked.

Yurlan frowned, the expression hard to read in the gloom, his body a vague outline with his thick cloak. 

"You need to get some rest. I will wake you when we are moving out. I want to find the nexus and leave before these intruders even know we are here," Yurlan said.

Archivauld nodded, crawling back into his tent. Intruders in their rift were not a good sign. Hopefully, it wasn't the inquisition having figured out he was here. That was extremely unlikely. How would they know he was with Yurlans crew? 

The inquisition couldn't know that.They were illegally entering this rift. No one except for the guy they bought the info off knew they were even in here.

So unless that scumbag sold them out, their presence in here should be a secret. And since that guy was just as scummy as the bandits, it was unlikely he would tip off the masks. Having the inquisition poking their masks into his business was unlikely to go well for that black market information merchant.

Archivauld signed, his breath misting as he tugged his heavy bedroll tighter around himself. Hopefully, they wouldn't have to deal with the inquisition. 

With his mind racing, it a while to fall asleep. 

A few hours of fitful sleep later, Archivuald was woken by screaming. With the sound drawing closer, he frantically dressed, throwing on his cloak, and grasping the haft of his battle ax.

The course grip felt comforting in his hands as he pushed open the tent flap.

The bitter chill was the first to greet him, the heavy falling ash limiting his sight as he searched for the threat. On the far side of their small camp, three figures were dragging two more into the small huddle of tents. 

It was Yurlan, Parcival, and Tanur dragging two people in the grey robes of the order. They were not yet inquisitors, but instead just acolytes. Trainees. Both were beaten to a bloody pulp, their faces purple from bruising, their grey robes red from blood.

As he watched, one of the two screamed and flailed.

Parcival wrapped his arms around her waist from behind laughing as she struggled. That cost him, as she twisted and elbowed Parcival in the nose smashing it flat. Parcival recoiled, releasing his grip. Blood ran down his face as the young woman desperately tried to escape. She used his startlement, pushing Parcival on his ass into the snow and sprinted away limping as she tried to run.

With a panicked look on her face, she darted towards the nearby cover of the trees. It seemed like she might escape, but the cards were not in her favor. She only got ten steps before a bearded ax tumbled end over end, lodged into her back with a sickening squelch.

She screamed in pain as she fell on her face in the snow and ash.

"Hey! What the hell Yurlan, I wanted that one," Parcival swore, scrambling to his feet, his broken nose gushing blood.

"Stop your bitching Parcival, and help Tanur," Yurlan snapped, striding over and wrenching his ax from the girl's back. His blow had severed her spine, but he raised his axe and swung again, his axe cleaving her head off in two savage blows. 

Archivauld watched with numb horror at the callus murder of the acolyte.

"No! Hissa!" The last acolyte screamed. "You monster, you killed her. You won't get away with this!" the acolyte shouted, flailing madly.

Parcival backhanded the young man, hard. "Shut up or I will cut your tongue out," Parcival growled, his voice nasal after his nose was broken.

The young man spat out blood and a broken tooth. He struggled with all of his might, but couldn't escape Tanur's grip as the man's muscles swelled in size.

"You bastards, you killed them! The inquisition will burn you at the stake for this," the acolyte said.

Archivauld slowly approached, his heart racing as he took in the scene.

"What's going on?" Archivauld asked, his question directed at Yurlan. His mind raced. What should he do? This wasn't right. Should he help this kid?

Parcival spat to one side, giving Archivauld a dark smile. 

"We figured you didn't have the guts to do what was necessary, so we left you here while we went to check on our guests. Turns out it was five acolytes and an inquisitor of the order. The dumb bastards didn't even have someone watching their camp while they slept," Parcival said.

"I thought we weren't going to confront them?" Archivauld asked, doing his best to hide his anger. He had to tread very carefully here. Archivauld knew very well how skilled at murder these three were. Without the element of surprise, he would be dead meat if it came to blows.

Yurlan wiped the blade of his axe, cleaning the blood off using the dead woman's grey robes. 

"We can't risk having the inquisition discovering us. They would have done the same to us if they discovered us first," Yurlan said coldly.

The terrified acolyte glanced between his captors, his eyes landing on Archivuald. A mixture of confusion, rage, fear and hope crossed his face. The young man clearly had no idea who he was, nor should he. The order was massive even in the outer layer, with multiple branches and dozens of training facilities. Everything from Templars, to the holy saints, and the feared inquisition. 

Parcival's laughter filled the air."I wouldn't look at him for help. He was kicked out of your order, and stripped of his title. That man is a scumbag, just like us," Parcival said with an evil smile.

"You, you left the holy order?" the young man accused?

Archivauld looked away, his expression saying all that needed to be said. 

"Traitor! How could you cast aside the faith, and join these bastards," he said, spitting a globule of blood at him.

Archivauld grimaced as the blood spattered on his cloak. He supposed he deserved that.

Still gripping his bearded axe, Yurlan stepped forward. 

"Alright boy, that's enough yapping. Are there any more of you entering this rift?" Yurlan asked.

Whether it was blind faith or stupidity, the young man grinned a defiant blood toothed smile. 

"Shove it up your ass, you Nether blasted pig. I'm not afraid to die. The holy mother is waiting for me on the other side. You will pay for your sins, mother, strike them down. I will go into the light, oh mother, protect me," the young man preached, sounding more delusional by the moment..

There was a loud crunch as Tanur reached up, and grasped the man's head. He arms swelled in size as he twisted, hard. There was a loud crunch as the young acolytes' head twisted a full one hundred eighty degrees.

Silence filled the clearing as the young man slumped to the snow, his neck broken. Stepping away, Tanur kicked suit-covered snow over the corpse.

"I hate when they start preaching. It's annoying," Tanur spat. 

Yurlan sighed. "I wanted that one alive, but killing him is probably for the best. That one was a zealot, we wouldn't have got much from him," Yurlan said. He spoke as if killing the acolytes in cold blood was just another day. 

Parcival gave the dead woman a forlorn stare. "Can't believe you killed her after we dragged her all the way over here. She had a damned nice body. I wanted to have some fun with her," Parcival said.

"Well, at least she can't scream anymore. Which is good. I can finally get some sleep," Yurlan said.

Parcival scowled. "I'm not desperate enough to sleep with a corpse. Besides, it's no fun when they don't struggle," Parcival said.

"You are one sick man," Yurlan said, hooking his axe in a loop on his belt. 

"How is my fun time any worse than torture and killing them?" Percival asked.

"It just is…. Don't know how you can actually enjoy an unwilling partner. Just wait till we return. If you're so horny, you can pay for whores like the rest of us. Anyways, I'm going to bed. Carry the bodies away from the camp. We don't want to attract scavengers," Yurlan said.

"Why would I pay, when i can get for free," Parcival muttered.

Archivauld hesitated for a few seconds, watching Yurlan stride away. 

He hadn't participated in the murder of these acolytes, but he also hadn't stepped in to help either. He had hesitated, standing by while those innocent people were killed in cold blood.

It made him feel dirty. Had he really fallen this far? These three really were rotten to the core. Was associating himself with them really worth the reward?

"Hey, Arch, help me dispose of the bodies," Parcival said, walking over to the dead girl and rifling through her pockets.

When he didn't respond, Tanur snapped his fingers in front of Archivaulds face.

"Hello, earth to Archie. Are you there?" Tanur asked, seeming unphased.

Archivauld shook his head, taking a deep calming breath, steadying himself. 

"Ahh, yeah, let's bury them in the snow," Archivauld said.

He felt like a coward for not doing anything, but being a hero right now would only get him killed. He grabbed the woman's feet and started dragging away from the camp, her body leaving a bloody smear in her wake.

As he started to dig a hole in the snow a few hundred meters from the campsite, he lamented his life choices. 

"What are you digging for? Just leave the bodies," Tanur said.

"Ya, these two don't deserve a proper grave," Parcival said.

"They don't deserve to become food for the wildlife. They are just acolytes. The least I can do is give them a proper burial," Archivauld said.

The two shared a glance before shrugging.

"Whatever. If you want to take a few hours and freeze your ass off to dig a shallow hole, then that's up to you," Tanur said.

Parcival glanced at the two corpses one final time.

"If you get eaten by wandering rift monsters, try to keep the screams to a minimum. It's been a long day and I'm tired," Parcival said.

Tanur laughed as the two walked away, disappearing into the trees back towards the camp. It was a pale, gloomy grey evening in the rift, ash and snow falling in unison. The bitter chill stung at him as he used his ax to chip away at the hard dirt. Giving these a proper burial was the least he could do. 

It took hours of arduous work as he dug two shallow holes in the ground. The two bodies barely fit inside, the ground frozen solid. By the time he covered them up, he could hardly fill the tips of his fingers and toes, his breath misting as he stood at the head of both graves.

The sky in the rift was overcast, a dull grey as thick clouds covered the horizon. Once they harvested the nexus, this place would soon return to whence it came. Any words he could offer just felt hollow, so he stood there in silent obeisance.

Life really was cheap. Sometimes he wondered if people were worse than the monsters that dwelt in rifts. It often felt like that. He hadn't dealt the killing blows, but this time he felt the burden of guilt heavy on his shoulders.

Archivauld was no hero, but perhaps he could rid the world of his three companions one way or another. He would still be burned at the stake if caught by the order, but It was the least he could do to rid the world of three monsters in human flesh.

But not yet. He still needed his new identity. He would bide his time until then.