The chapel door gaped wide like a rotting mouth.
The air seeping from within differed from the sickly sweet scent of decay in the forest outside. It was an older, dustier, and denser smell: dried beeswax, stale incense, and ancient blood.
Verrick stood behind Kaelen. His masked face was turned toward the darkness, but Kaelen could feel the man's tension. The gardener's hand hovered constantly over the hilt of the saw-sword at his waist.
"You go first, Greyskin," Verrick whispered. His voice was like the rustling of wind over dry leaves. "That big hunk of iron and that cursed leathery armor of yours… they're ideal for breaking the teeth of the roots."
Kaelen did not object. Because Mourning was calling him. The sword sensed the dense, sick energy inside the chapel and pulled Kaelen inward like a magnet. His right eye—that pitch-black void—could already see the diseased purple veins pulsing in the darkness beyond the door.
Kaelen took his first step. His boot crunched against the broken stone floor of the chapel.
This place was once filled with light. Now, it lay in the shadow of massive roots that had pierced through the ceiling. The stained glass had blown out, and the moonlight filtering in illuminated suspended motes of dust and spores. The pews were smashed, piled up against the sides.
And upon the altar, the thing waited.
THE WEEPING PREACHER.
This was no longer a human. The tattered, gold-embroidered purple robe it wore suggested it had once been a priest. But its body had merged with a massive tree behind the altar. It had no lower body; its spine fused with thick, wet roots that blended into the trunk of the tree.
Its face… Its face had sagged downward like melted wax. It had no eyes, and its mouth was a permanently gaping black pit of groans.
As Kaelen stepped forward, the Preacher's head jerked up.
"...who..." Its voice sounded like the echo of a wet cave. "Who dares... disturb the silence?"
Kaelen raised Mourning with both hands. The petrified numbness in his left arm was still there, but the muscle memory of Groth allowed him to balance the sword's weight. His right eye marked a green, throbbing light glowing beneath the robes in the center of the Preacher's chest.
The Preacher sensed the intruder. And its attack was not physical.
The creature's mouth opened to an impossible width.
"SINNEEEER!"
This was not a sound, but a mental shockwave. The scream targeted not Kaelen's ears, but his brain directly. A judgment. An accusation. The Preacher screamed to find its victims' deepest regrets and darkest memories, crushing them with their own conscience.
Behind him, Verrick stumbled in the doorway, falling to his knees as he clutched his mask. Even he was wrestling with the ghosts of his past.
But Kaelen stood firm.
He narrowed his eyes. He tilted his head slightly to the side.
He waited.
He waited for regret. He waited for a memory, a murder, the face of a friend he had betrayed. He waited for that guilt to come and sit upon his chest.
But nothing came.
His mind was empty. Tabula Rasa.
The Preacher's magic slipped into the void like a vine finding no branch to cling to, rendering it ineffective. Kaelen had no past. He had no sin. There was only the now.
The Preacher paused. A look of blind confusion appeared on its melted face. "Empty..." it moaned. "You... what are you? Why are you empty inside?"
Kaelen took this confusion as his opportunity.
"I am only the end," he said.
He lunged forward.
Realizing its magic had failed, the Preacher roared in fury. From beneath its robes, thick, thorny vines—no longer human arms—shot out. They slashed through the air like whips, attacking Kaelen.
Kaelen did not dodge. He couldn't; his armor and left arm were too heavy. He stood his ground and shielded himself with his left shoulder.
THWACK!
The thorny vine struck his shoulder. It tore the armor and buried itself in the grey skin beneath. But Groth's cursed hide absorbed the blow. His bones ached, his teeth clattered together, but he did not fall.
"Now!" he shouted to himself.
He swung Mourning.
The sword caught one of the vine-arms extending toward him in mid-air. The rusty metal tore through plant fiber and flesh alike. Sap and black blood splattered everywhere. The Preacher shrieked in pain.
Kaelen had breached the creature's defense. He sprinted toward the altar. His target was the green light glowing in that chest.
But just then, a whistling sound came from behind.
Whizzz...
Kaelen thought Verrick was helping him, perhaps throwing a bomb to distract the Preacher.
But the bottle did not fall on the Preacher; it landed right next to the altar, directly in Kaelen's path.
BOOM!
A wall of green flame erupted. Kaelen was forced to stop by the heat blasting against his face. The flames had cut him off from the Preacher.
"What are you doing?!" Kaelen shouted, looking over the flames at Verrick.
Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the fire, Verrick glided from the side, moving through the shadows toward the altar. He was not holding his saw-sword; instead, he gripped a strange tool with a hooked tip.
"Thanks for clearing the path, Greyskin," Verrick said. His voice was cold and calculating.
Seizing the moment while the Preacher writhed in agony, Verrick drove his hook into the creature's chest, right where the glowing light pulsed.
The Preacher bellowed with an inhuman sound. Verrick ruthlessly leveraged the hook. The sound of tearing flesh and roots echoed through the chapel. And then, Verrick pulled back, holding a fist-sized, throbbing emerald stone.
THE HEART OF THE FOREST.
This was no resin. This was the life source of the forest. A power beyond price.
The moment its heart was ripped out, the Preacher collapsed. All the roots in its body began to wither and turn grey simultaneously. But it did not die. It was simply trapped in the purest form of pain.
Verrick wrapped the stone in a piece of cloth and tossed it into his bag. Then, he looked at Kaelen. The flames stood between them.
"I don't like to share," Verrick said. "Besides, those who carry it don't live long."
He pulled a second bottle from his pocket. He threw this one at the dried main roots supporting the chapel's ceiling.
Flames instantly leaped to the ceiling. Cracking sounds began to echo. Burning pieces of wood and stone started to rain down. The chapel was collapsing. The exit was blocked behind a wall of fire.
"Goodbye, Kaelen," Verrick said, and slipped out through a hole in the crumbling wall.
Kaelen was alone.
The ceiling was caving in, and flames were surrounding him. And before him lay the dying Preacher.
Despite the heat of the flames and the suffocating smoke, Kaelen approached the Preacher. The creature was no longer attacking. It was only trembling. Its melted face turned toward Kaelen.
Mourning trembled in Kaelen's hand. The sword wanted the creature's last breath.
Kaelen raised the sword and plunged it into the Preacher's shattered chest.
When the metal buried itself in the flesh, time stood still. The roar of the flames ceased. The smoke dissipated.
The Flood of Memories that Kaelen had been waiting for finally filled his mind.
Kaelen was no longer Kaelen. He was a young, idealistic priest.
He was in the village square. The people... the people were dying of starvation. The soil was barren, the crops had turned black. A mother was weeping, clutching a dead baby to her chest.
"Lord," the young priest prayed. "Take whatever is necessary to feed them. Take me."
A voice answered. The voice of the forest. Sweet, promising.
"I will give," the voice said. "But you must also take root. You must become one with me. Then your body shall become their bread."
The priest did not hesitate. He offered himself to the forest. When the roots pierced his skin, he felt no pain, only hope.
But then... came the betrayal.
The forest did not feed him. The forest exploited him. The priest's body grew, turning into a tree, but the fruit it bore was poisonous. The villagers ate that fruit and turned into Root-Puppets. The priest watched as he transformed the very people he wanted to save into monsters with his own hands. For centuries.
He could not move. He could not die. He only watched and wept.
Forgive... the thought echoed in the priest's mind. They were just... hungry...
"AHHH!"
Kaelen was thrown backward as if struck by a physical blow. His back slammed into a burning pillar.
Tears were streaming from his eyes. These tears did not belong to him, but the pain... the pain was entirely his. He felt to his marrow how the priest's pure, well-intentioned sacrifice had turned into a horrific curse. Groth's mourning was heavy, but this... this was pure tragedy.
The chapel shook with a massive roar. One of the main beams snapped, and the roof began to collapse inward.
Kaelen looked at the corpse of the Preacher (now just a pile of dry wood).
"You are free now," he whispered amidst the smoke.
The roof collapsed completely.
Kaelen did not try to run. There was nowhere to run. Flames and piles of stone crashed down upon him.
Darkness.
Heat.
And silence.
Kaelen remained trapped under the rubble, amidst broken stones and burning wood. As his consciousness faded, his hand instinctively went to the medallion around his neck. And that voice in his mind, Elara, spoke for the first time in a compassionate tone.
...do not sleep... Ash does not burn... but you must wake up... there is someone down below...
The floor beneath Kaelen could not withstand the weight of the fire and collapsed with a thunderous crash. Kaelen fell into the darkness, into the sewers, and into the depths of the unknown.