Lord Of The Mysteries: A Slug of Time

As the clouds in the sky receded, warm, bright rays shone upon the land, shining over the bustling town of Henschen; with people of all ages coming, going, and interacting with each other. 

While this town was quite small in terms of area, its population was far from compact. As one of the only towns that was left standing after the terrible night without the Crimson Moon, it became one of the last bastions of Humanity within an area over two thousand kilometres in radius. Due to this, the densely populated town was mostly filled with refugees, seeking asylum. 

Within one of the randomly made, dense and littered streets of this town, a man and a woman stood out as they walked along, taking in their surroundings. 

From a nearby alleyway which could really only fit about two male adults side to side, a little girl emerged, stormed through the ragged people and eventually, stubbed her toe on a wooden fence. Yet, before the people could react she ignored the pain and resumed her run, as in a sacred manner. However, while she could beat with the pain, her frail body couldn't and she soon started limping amidst the stares of the people around her. She once more stumbled, but was suddenly caught by a fair hand gripping gently on the collar of her rags which were dubbed as clothes.

The little girl's eyes widened, her already rapid heartbeat and irregular breaths quickening as extreme fear settled in. She witnessed the ground before her move away as she was casually lifted. This caused her to close her eyes shut, as she prepared for the inevitable pain that would befall on her.

However, it never came as her back was straightened, her dust filled messy black hair patted and all her fears and anxiety vanished. This also included the pain radiating from her toe she had tried her best to ignore, as well as the numerous chronic pains that plagued her body. All of them suddenly vanished, as if they never existed. 

Her eyes snapped open in shock, as she turned her head to peer at the figure of the crouched person before her, but the tears running down her eyes caused the image to appear blurry. She reflexively used her hands to wipe her tears, as her eyes focused on this person.

It was a woman, cloaked in a black hooded robe, her face, bar her curled red lips and chin was covered by a thin black veil with her long hair leaking through her hood, and falling to her chest.

While it appeared hidden at first, the girl could faintly discern the serene dark eyes behind the veil, peering back at her.

The woman extended her hand, a gesture which would have normally caused the girl to reflexively flinch, but instead, she was calm as the hand landed on her now clean, but still disordered hair. The girl felt an unprecedented serenity, as the woman brushed her hair, her soothing smiling growing. The woman tilted her head, observing the small girl, before her attention was captured by the crashing sound behind her.

Turning her head, the woman witnessed a man, his figure plump and a bit roundish and his looks nothing out of ordinary bar the ugly scowl plastered on his face as he approached them occasionally shook aside the passerbys, most of them distancing themselves from him. Gripped in his hand, was a wooden plank with a trail of crimson painted at its edges. 

The woman nonchalantly turned back to the girl, noticing the distinct red that had appeared on her fair hand.

Upon noticing the plump man, the little girl flinched and immediately tried to run away, but was immediately stunned as she almost stumbled back, but was steadied by the woman. It was clear that the girl hadn't gotten used to her afflicted freed body.

As a result, she shifted her focus back to the woman who stood up, the surroundings growing faint, as the people around ignored them. Her soothing smile remained as she observed the ruckus created by the man in the surroundings. 

The plump man continuously snapped around, as if looking for something or someone. His gaze kept darting from one vagabond to another, occasionally threatening some to reveal what they had just seen and experienced. However, none seemed to recall anything peculiar.

Amanises' focus shifted back to the girl who was now frozen solid, as if she had seen a nightmare.

The girl's heavy heart suddenly felt at ease as a hand grabbed her tiny, calloused hand. She reflexively let out a deep breath she had been holding, and looked up at the mysterious, tall and beautiful woman, seemingly being able to see into her kind eyes. 

"Is that a bad person?" The woman's voice, like a gentle wave, sounded in her ears. This caused the girl's gaze to flicker to the man, who was furiously racking his surroundings as if venting. After a while, he gestured to some men and women beside him, all possessing similar bearings to him before departing into a crooked alleyway.

The girl initially tried to respond, but she coughed a bit; clearly, she wasn't used to the brand new feelings of her vocal cords. Unfortunately, after years of a nightmarish life, they had mostly been wasted. 

She bit her lips, and slightly nodded causing the woman to return the gesture and look ahead, to where the man had run to. "Where I'm from, there's this saying which goes, 'turn and expose the other cheek when someone slaps the other'. However, I believe it only applies in specific situations… very specific ones."

It seemed more like Amanises was talking to herself as she didn't expect the girl to understand what she meant. Strangely enough, she seemed to grasp her intent, as she looked up at the woman with pleading eyes.

"Please… please save us! My sister, the others…" tears threatened to explode out of her eyes as she forced them back, but let her gaze remain on the tall woman. The girl knew, she just knew that randomly trusting a stranger was the worst mistake one could commit. This was exactly how she, and her dear sister, were abducted. 

However, after all that had recently transpired, she couldn't help but feel a resurgence of the sentiment she had always ruthlessly shoved away. 

Hope. 

Hope that someone will free them from their nightmares. 

Amanises's eyes darkened, and the world seemed to stretch and turn distant, and cloaked with a veil of darkness. Despite this, a faint light shimmered, one carrying all sorts of scenarios, possibilities, and much more.

The River of Fate!

By shouldering one's, another's, or an object's burden, a Knight of Misfortune could enter and walk through the river of Fate, where destinies were created and intertwined. Concealment was futile before one such as them, wielding authority over concealment. From there, they could use the burden they shouldered and convert it into a medium that connected them to their designated targets. In this instance, Amanises carried the girl's burden, connecting to all those who were directly or indirectly linked to her.

And now, a destined "end" would befall on most of them as they succumbed to their worst nightmares. 

…

The Crimson Moon shone, night dawned over. 

Streets, once bustling, now stood bathed in an unsettling silence. The crimson light illuminated numerous, haphazardly placed dilapidated wooden buildings, casting eerie shadows upon the littered streets. Its many alleyways reeked of decay, filled with discarded refuse and the faint scent of mildew clinging to the air.

In one of the alleyways, huddled underneath the long shadows, a child stumbled forward. His small feet, marred in filth, barely made a sound as they navigated along the "road". Clad in a tattered tunic that did little to shield him from the night's biting chill, he moved aimlessly, his vision constantly flickering between being blurry and clear.

As he walked by, a shift. A tremor in the air arose.

A rough hand, wrapped in frayed cloth, lunged from the darkness and seized his wrist. It was neither firm nor tender—just unyielding. Cold, unfeeling. 

The boy stiffened, eyes widening in fear, before another hand, thick and calloused, clamped over his mouth, trapping his breath in his throat.

From the surrounding void, two figures emerged. One, tall and lean, the other, a hunched and stocky brute, his bulk filling the narrow passageway. Their faces, hidden beneath deep hoods, revealed only glimpses of jagged teeth as they moved, maintaining the silence in the alleway.

With practiced ease, the boy was hoisted into the air. His limbs jerked, his cries muffled by the hand still pressed against his lips and nose. A jagged edge suddenly pressed against his ribs—neither piercing nor gentle, just a silent threat; which had positive effects as he stopped resisting. 

The taller figure's focus flickered towards the empty street, then to the shadowed mouth of the alley. With a brief exchange of nods, they began to walk into a certain direction, navigating the dark twisted alleyways with familiarity, taking the child with them.

The child's eyes watered, his eyes going shut, as if he had realized what awaited him—a world of pain or worse.

Then, the world shifted .

One moment, the smaller of the cloaked duo strode through the alleys, the child's compliant form resting on his shoulder while his accomplice led the way. The next, a void, an inky darkness swallowing all sound, all unnecessary movement, leaving him alone in its wake..

He stopped, as if frozen by the unexpected change. The weight of the child in his grasp— gone . The presence of his accomplice— vanished . Only empty air remained. His fingers curled around nothing but the cold, damp fabric of his own robe.

A breath hitched against his neck. He turned, gaze darting wildly to what were once the walls of the alle—now only Darkness loomed. Suddenly, it stretched, twisted and moved towards him in a big way to devour the oddity with it. His own ragged breaths sounded distant, like whispers carried by the dry wind. The crimson moon above, now encompassing the entire sky, flickered, its glow faltering like a dying ember, embracing all evil.

Then, a sound .

A moan. Small, broken. A child's whimper drifting through the thickening dark, slithering into the man's ears like a parasite seeking to burrow into his skull. 

It came from nowhere. It came from everywhere .

He gulped, his mouth dry. The darkness surrounding him cloaked his figure, carrying an intense frigidity and bringing out his deep seated fears. His legs twitched, ready to flee, but his body felt heavier with every breath, as though unseen hands were pressing him down, holding him in place. 

The moan came again. Closer. Clearer . Laced in sorrow, in agony . A child's voice, one not pleading but condemning. The man knew that voice. He had heard it before, in another time, in another alley, in another night steeped in the same crimson glow.

A whisper rasped against the shell of his ear, cold as the grave:

"Why?"

He lurched forward , staggering blindly through the never ending darkness. However, he came to an abrupt stop as his weathered sandals splashed into something thick, viscous . 

He looked down—

Blood.

A sea of it.

Dark red and endless , stretching in every direction. His feet sank , the cold biting through fabric, seeping into his skin like a creeping chill. The scent and feeling of decay flooded all his senses. The still darkness was wet with rot.

A giggle. 

High-pitched. 

Mirthless.

His gaze shot up. And there, standing where the alley had once stretched into the distant night, was a shape . Small, trembling . A child. Its skin decayed, peeling like old parchment, its eyes black pits weeping streaks of crimson. Its lips curled into a grotesque grin, the corners of its mouth splitting wide, revealing shattered teeth.

He staggered back, bile rising in his throat. No. No, it's not real!

The child took a step forward. The blood beneath them rippled.

Another step. A wet squelch.

And then the giggle grew. Louder. Distorted . Splitting, multiplying, a chorus of voices merging into one monstrous shriek of laughter.

Hands shot up from the blood. Small hands, skeletal, clawing at his robes, at his arms, at his throat. He choked, gasping, thrashing, but the hands only pulled tighter, dragging him down, dragging him under—

And the last thing he saw before the world drowned in red was the child's gaping maw splitting open, whispering in a voice laced with a thousand damned souls:

"Why…?"

…

The horrors did not end with one.

Across the rotting alleyways and the decayed buildings where slavers and kidnappers among other criminals lay in restless slumber, the nightmare spread like a plague. Each one, wrapped in the illusion of safety, was wrenched into the same darkness.

A man, now found himself stripped bare, crawling through a corridor of grasping arms—each pair, small, rotting, mangles of flesh sticking out. Their fingers dug into his flesh, peeling it away in strips as he screamed, his voice swallowed, never to be heard by any .

Another, a brute who prided himself in breaking those too weak to resist , now found himself bound in unseen chains. Darkness cloaking shadows, their faces warped, twisted parodies of small kids. Their whispers crawled into his ears, a cacophony, their small hands pressing into his chest, their weight dragging him into the cold depths of inky darkness.

Elsewhere, a merchant of flesh awoke— or thought he did . The walls of his chamber bled, the wooden beams twisting into skeletal limbs. The floor beneath him pulsed, a mass of writhing bodies sporting faces, half-formed—their silent screams pressing against his ears. He tried to run, but the nearby door distanced itself, its surface distorting into shark-like mouths, mocking him . 

Far away from this carnage, or perhaps creaking in its very depth, two figures walked in silence.

Hand in hand, Amanises and the little girl silently tread upon the flowing current of the silver river—the River of Fate. The water-like fluid did not churn beneath them, nor did it ripple at their passing—it merely carried them forward, its silver sheen reflecting fractured glimpses of past and present alike. Currently though, part of its surface reflected horrifying carnage. Apart from this, faint images swirled beneath it: a child's laughter swallowed by silence, fingers clutched in desperation, shackles rusting in forgotten corners. 

The girl's grip on Amanises' hand tightened, though she said nothing.

It was then that Amanises paused, a thought forming into her mind—was this child not far too young to witness such horrors? She turned her gaze, already preparing to conceal the girl's vision and corresponding memories. However, she paused, examining the girl's face. Cold, emotionless eyes— deep dark—held within them a firm, unyielding spirit. It was like akin to a judge's gaze when passing sentence upon the condemned, or a soul driven by vengeance long overdue.

Amanises narrowed her eyes, her breath stilling as a quiet whisper echoed through her Spiritual Intuition—

Leave her be.

A greyish mist curled at the river's edge, stretching forever on to every distributary of the river of fate. Looming structures, neither whole nor broken, flickered in and out of existence beyond the mist. A world that was and was not. No sky, no stars, only the boundless twilight above.

After a long walk, the river slowly declined, with the figures of Amanises and the little girl flickering in and out of reality, their forms constantly shifting before finally settling. When they emerged fully, they stood before a wooden structure, its exterior fractured and cold, the air thick with the scent of blood and rot, as if the walls themselves had absorbed years of suffering.

"Inside!" The little girl unexpectedly spoke louder than she had wanted, slipping from Amanises' grasp as she ran into the depleted building. Her hurried steps echoed through the dilapidated structure, cutting through the silence like a blade. A moment later, a shrill cry resounded, followed by a cascade of murmurs, fragile.

Amanises took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Inside the building, the air was heavy—thick with the remnants of fear, yet now quivering with something else entirely. Scattered across the dim expanse of crimson were children, their clothes tattered, their eyes containing no luster of young ones. Some recoiled at the sudden intrusion, displaying immense fear, while others merely sat in silence.

But then a sob, sharp and breathless, pierced through the murmurs. A girl, thin and trembling, rose from a darkened corner. Her eyes, wide with disbelief, locked onto the child who had burst through the doorway.

"Sister!?"

The little girl halted, her breath caught in her throat. For a moment, hesitation—uncertainty, given how she looked a little different—better than she had always remembered. But then, as if drawn by an unseen force, she rushed forward, arms outstretched. The two collided in an embrace, limbs tightening, clutching, pressing, as if afraid the other would vanish should they let go.

Tears, warm and unending, slipped down dirt-streaked cheeks. The older girl's fingers curled into the fabric of her sister's tunic, holding on as though anchoring herself to something.

Around them, the murmurs grew. One by one, the other haggard children turned, watching. Something unfamiliar seemed to flicker within their hollowed eyes. A longing, a yearning. Some clutched their own trembling hands, others pressed against one another, as if seeking a warmth long lost to them.

Amanises stood at the threshold, watching in silence. A deep sigh parted her lips, shaking her head. Beneath her veil, a smile took shape. She turned, her dark gaze sweeping over the countless children scattered across the depleted wooden structure.

Then her eyes flickered.

A tide of calm and serenity washed over them. Fear was unraveled, terror was turned to dust. Their wounds, raw and fresh, shimmered, turning illusory before vanishing altogether, as though pain itself had been a mere dream. Exhaustion, once carved into their small bodies, dissolved like mist before the dawn.

The children stilled. A moment later, each with widened eyes and gasping as their fingers began tracing where the scars, and chronic pain had become all too familiar. Surprisingly, they only found smooth and round skin. Breath, once ragged and sharp, now came light, steady. Their eyes widened even further as they turned to examine each other in bewilderment.

Their Misfortune had been lifted; their pains concealed, and their nightmares erased.

Amanises stepped forward, closing her eyes before opening them again once more. She knelt beside the sisters still clinging to each other, her fingers brushing over tangled strands of hair. 

"It is done."

She whispered quietly, receiving a nod from the bigger one. Amanises nodded in return, tilting her head as she observed her surroundings. The children, no longer oppressed in fear, moved out of the curtained shadows, their figure no longer bathed in dust and filth. 

The once quiet murmurs, now turned into delightful sounds, joyful and excited cries, and movement. The once gloomy and cold place was now filled with warmth.

"To bring disaster and to lift disaster; a Knight performs two duties. One guided by their morals, other guided by their predetermined actions.

"To where shall the misfortune be held, and to where it shall be lifted."

Amanises felt her Knight of Misfortune potion slowly digesting by a bit, and her humanity ever so strengthened.

…

Marianne?