Patricia POV
I tightened my grip on the hilt of my rapier, stepping deliberately between Keith and the tavern crowd. I knew from Eirene's warnings back on the road that this infection moved like wildfire through blood and bites.
"Hey! Gatekeeper! Are you bitten? Look at your skin! Did any of their blood touch your open wounds?!" I called out, my voice sharp and commanding, honed by my paladin training.
Keith stumbled against the doorframe, gasping frantically as he looked down at his bloodied armor.
"No! No, I swear to God I'm not bitten! I just... I fought my way through three of them near the district arch! They don't just bite… they mutate! Their ribs snap outward into bone blades!"
"Then help me barricade this entrance right now!" I ordered.
Keith didn't hesitate. He slammed his hip against a heavy oak dining table, shoving it hard against the heavy front doors.
The tavern patrons, however, were still paralyzed by denial and alcohol. The two crude degenerates I had confronted earlier at the counter scoffed, sloshing their ale as they took a step toward the entrance.
"Monsters? Are you out of your damn mind, guard? It's broad daylight in the middle of the commercial district! I've got a shipment to pick up at the docks!" the greasiest one sneered, waving a hand dismissively.
"I'm telling you, don't open that… " Keith tried to warn them, his voice cracking.
"Listen to the gatekeeper, you absolute morons!"
A sharp, youthful voice cut through the tavern noise from near the back pillars. A slim boy in ragged, dirt-stained black clothes stepped forward into the lantern light. He had a twitchy, desperate look in his eyes… the universal posture of a street urchin ready to dive into an alley the second trouble started.
"If Keith says there's blood in the streets, there's blood in the streets! Barricade the damn windows before they breach!" the youth snapped, pointing a trembling finger at the barricaded door.
The two drunkards spun around, their faces twisting in pure disgust the second they recognized him.
"Oh, shut the hell up, Keane! You miserable asshole! You're just a pathetic little pickpocket!" the second drunkard spat, burst into a harsh, mock laughter.
"Yeah, look who's giving survival advice! You just got dragged out of an alley behind this very inn covered in spit, blabbering some crazy story about a one-armed, green-eyed demon girl who stole your face! You just got out of a cell and now you're acting like a prophet?" the first one chimed in, glaring at the boy.
The boy… Keane… flinched violently, his knuckles whitening as he pulled his ragged collar up around his neck.
"I told you idiots, I WAS set up! I'm not the guy who broke the Citadel!"
I blinked, watching the exchange from the stairs. Keane Leon?
I had read the recent bulletins from the Caria Times back at the Bureau. "Keane Leon" was supposed to be the legendary, terrifying mastermind who had single-handedly slaughtered prison guards, orchestrated a massive breakout at the unbreakable Dodorant Citadel, and drawn a massive 10-gold bounty across the continent before the Bureau cleared his name as an unwitting identity theft victim.
Looking at the trembling, scrawny kid standing in front of me, covered in dust and begging drunkards to lock a door... it was almost surreal. To think an ordinary, low-level gutter thief had his entire life utterly ruined and turned into the continent's most wanted fugitive, all because some high-tier shapeshifter decided to borrow his face for a prison run.
And from my confirmation, that shapeshifted is Eirene.
"Enough!" I roared, drawing my rapier fully from its sheath. The polished steel gleamed in the dim tavern light, instantly silencing both the drunkards and Keane.
"The gatekeeper is right, and the boy is right! There is an active outbreak outside these walls! Anyone who touches that door is getting run through by my blade before the monsters can even get to you! Drag the heavy benches! Barricade the main doors and the side shutters NOW!"
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ground together. The greasiest drunkard sneered, stepping right into my personal space with a liquor-soaked breath that made my stomach turn.
"Oh, shut the hell up, bitch, men are superior to women. You girls are nothing more than useless baggage. You're just sex toys for us anyway."
That single sentence broke whatever restraint I had left.
I didn't care about my paladin oath in that split second. I balled my right hand into a white-knuckled fist and threw a heavy, straight punch right into his greasy jaw.
THWACK!
His head snapped back, a tooth flying out as he stumbled against a table. But before I could draw my rapier to finish him, his massive companion lunged from my blind spot, tackling me hard onto the wooden floorboards.
"Get off me!" I snarled, struggling against their heavy frames.
The two of them pinned my arms, their heavy boots driving vicious kicks straight into my ribs and hips. In a lawless dockside tavern like the Golden Shrimp, a bar fight breaking out was just another Tuesday morning. Out of the dozen patrons drinking at the tables, almost nobody even blinked… until a loud, heavy CRACK echoed over the scuffle.
SPLAT!
Keane had lunged across the floor, grabbing a thick ceramic stew plate from a nearby table and smashing it with all his strength right across the side of the second drunkard's head. Shards of glazed clay exploded, and the man collapsed instantly onto the floor, unconscious and bleeding profusely from his temple.
The entire tavern atmosphere froze. The regular patrons… who hadn't cared about two men beating up a paladin… suddenly stood up from their chairs in outrage.
"Keane! That's it! You've gone way too damn far this time!" one of the regulars yelled.
"You scrawny little psycho! You killed him!" another barked.
I coughed, scrambling up from the floor, thoroughly stunned by the crowd's reaction.
Favoritism for the local drunks?
Keane was a petty thief who had spent his life picking pockets in this exact district; every regular in this tavern knew him, hated him, and picked on him. Watching a local gutter rat knock out a paying regular was the one line they wouldn't let him cross.
"He was kicking her, you blind bastards!" Keane screamed, holding a broken ceramic shard, his chest heaving with desperate anger.
"Get the kid!" someone roared, and the entire tavern erupted into pure, chaotic violence.
Wooden chairs were thrown, tankards smashed against walls, and fists flew in every direction. Keith, who was still straining his full weight against the barricaded front door, turned around in absolute fury. As a gatekeeper of Lulu City, watching a tavern full of degenerate drunks start a riot while a biological outbreak raged outside pushed him over the edge.
"STOP IT! ALL OF YOU, CEASE THIS AT ONCE!" Keith bellowed, pulling his heavy iron guard baton from his belt to enforce order.
SLASH… CRACK!
Before Keith could take two steps toward the brawl, a massive, jagged bone blade sheared through the center of the oak table barricading the entrance, splitting the heavy wood like dry firewood.
The front doors burst completely open.
Standing in the shattered threshold was a horrifying, mutated thrall. Its chest ribcage had burst outward into a mass of razor-sharp skeletal spikes, its hollowed eyes glowing with mindless aggression.
The absolute chaos in the tavern died in a heartbeat. Every drunkard froze mid-punch, staring in sheer, paralyzed horror at the biological nightmare in front of them.
SCREECH!
Without giving anyone time to process the sight, the monster lunged forward with terrifying speed, bypassing Keith and driving its overgrown bone blade straight through the stomach of the drunkard who had just been kicking me on the floor.
SPURT!
The heavy blade impaled the man cleanly, lifting him an inch off the floorboards before slamming him back down. Dark, corrupted blood sprayed across the walls and soaked into the floorboards. The man gasped, his eyes rolling back as the dark virus instantly began coursing through his veins.
"That's the monster! That's the damn thing I was talking about!" Keith screamed, his voice cracking as he backed away from the shattered doorway.
The mutated thrall yanked its jagged bone blade free from the drunkard's stomach with a sickening SCHLICK.
The impaled man collapsed to his knees, clutching his gaping wound, groaning in agony as dark, viscous fluid began leaking from his abdomen.
The beast swung its hollow, dilated eyes toward me, raising its skeletal arm to strike.
Driven by pure instinct, I planted my boot flat against its calcified chest and kicked with all my strength.
THUD!
The monster stumbled backward, crashing heavily into another drunkard who had been frozen in shock. Before the man could scream, the thrall snapped its jaw unhinged and sank its razor-sharp teeth deep into his throat, tearing away a chunk of flesh in a spray of bright crimson.
"RUN! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" several patrons shrieked, abandoning all reason.
Ignoring Keith's warnings, a group of terrified drunkards threw open the remaining latch and bolted out into the street. They didn't make it three steps. Horrific, wet crunching sounds and agonizing screams echoed from the avenue outside as the horde waiting in the commercial district tore into them.
Through the doorway, I saw Keane trembling, holding a broken glass bottle like a makeshift dagger, his face drained of all color.
"Keane! Shut the door! NOW!" I barked, raising my rapier.
Keane snapped out of his trance and lunged for the shattered oak door. At the exact same time, the surviving patrons who had just run outside came scrambling back inward, hyperventilating as they realized the nightmare awaiting them in the streets.
As Keane reached for the iron bolt, the sudden commotion attracted the horde outside. A skeletal thrall lunged through the doorway, its bone blade whistling through the air straight for Keane's neck.
Keane threw himself backward… the edge grazing his collar by a fraction of an inch… and thrust the jagged broken bottle forward with a desperate scream, jamming it straight through the creature's eye socket.
CRUNCH!
"Die, you bastard!" Keane yelled as the creature collapsed.
Keith rushed up beside him, unholstering his iron guard baton and relentlessly slamming it down onto another thrall trying to wedge itself through the frame. But without a blade to pierce their skulls, beating mindless, pain-immune corpses with a baton was barely slowing them down.
Beside me, a wet, horrifying gurgle drew my attention.
The drunkard who had been impaled in the stomach was now flat on his back, his body convulsing violently as white, thick foam erupted from his mouth and nose… the exact same biological horror Eirene had turned recently at the mountains.
His skin turned a mottled, necrotic gray, and with a series of sickening CRACK-CRACK sounds, his ribs violently snapped outward through his shirt, calcifying into jagged, razor-sharp bone blades right before my eyes.
"He's turning! Get back!" I yelled, scrambling back to my feet and drawing my rapier to a high guard.
Total panic consumed the remaining patrons. Realizing the streets were a death trap and the ground floor was becoming an slaughterhouse, several panicked customers abandoned the fight entirely and sprinted for the wooden staircase leading to the guest rooms.
"Get out of the way, old man!" one of them roared, cornering the burly innkeeper at the reception desk.
Desperate for safety, two men brutally beat the innkeeper to the floor, violently snatching the ring of room keys from his bloody belt before scrambling up the stairs to lock themselves inside the upper floor.
"Shit, shit, shit! What the hell is happening?! Why is it spreading so damn fast?!" I swore under my breath, my heart pounding like a war drum against my ribs.
The oak barricade was completely compromised. Five calcified, bone-blade thralls barged through the shattered threshold at once, descending on the remaining tavern patrons in a terrifying frenzy of tearing flesh and sprayed blood. Keane was frantically stabbing at an infected's neck with a broken bottle, while Keith's heavy baton bounced uselessly off a thrall's calcified sternum.
"Run! Get out of here!" I yelled to anyone still standing.
Catherine.
My mind snapped back to Room 104. She was upstairs, helpless, recovering from whatever dark magic Edrie had inflicted on her. I couldn't let those terrified, violent drunks who stole the keys break into her room, and I couldn't let the horde reach her first.
I turned on my heel and bolted up the wooden staircase three steps at a time. Reaching the second-floor hallway, I sprinted toward Room 104, drawing my brass key from my pouch.
Standing right outside the door were two of the patrons who had fled the lobby, clutching kitchen knives with white knuckles.
"Hey! Lass! Were you bitten?!"
"No! Get out of my way!" I snapped, shoving past them to unlock the door.
"Get inside and close the goddamn door!" the second one yelled, practically throwing himself into the room ahead of me.
I rushed inside to check on Catherine… she was still on the bed, groggy and stirring, but alive. I turned back toward the hallway, reaching for the heavy iron latch to seal us in. Through the closing gap, I saw two frantic figures sprinting down the corridor toward us: Keith and Keane, breathless, with the shrieks of the horde hot on their heels.
Instinct and pure survival took over. I slammed the door shut and threw the heavy iron bolt into place.
THAM-THAM-THAM!
"HEY! OPEN THE DAMN DOOR! OPEN IT!" Keith's desperate voice echoed through the wood, accompanied by heavy fists bashing against the frame.
"They're right behind us! Open the door!" Keane screamed from the hallway.
"Don't you dare touch that bolt! They were down there in the blood! They're probably infected! Keep it locked!"
My hand hovered over the iron bolt, my chest heaving. The frantic pounding outside grew louder, accompanied by the wet, rhythmic scraping of bone blades against the hallway floorboards. They were begging for their lives out there.
I took a breath, gritted my teeth, and took the risk.
I threw open the latch and pulled the door wide just as a bone blade whistled through the air, embedding itself into the wall an inch behind Keith's ear.
"Get in!" I roared, grabbing Keane by his collar and hauling him across the threshold while Keith threw himself inside right behind him.
I slammed the door shut once more and threw the bolt home just as a heavy impact shivered through the oak.
BANG!
Keane collapsed against the wall, hyperventilating, his eyes blazing with furious, adrenaline-fueled anger as he glared up at me.
"You closed the damn door on us! You almost left us out there to die!"
"Back off, Keane! Look around this room! Do the math! It wasn't just about you two… we have two terrified men in here, an unconscious grand mage on that bed, and a horde pounding at the walls! If I hesitated and let the infected slip inside while the door was wide open, EVERY SINGLE ONE of us would be dead right now! Two lives on the line or five? I took the risk and pulled you in, so save your anger for the monsters outside!"
Keane's jaw snapped shut, his chest heaving as his eyes darted from the point of my rapier to Catherine's unconscious form on the bed, then to the two knife-wielding patrons cowering in the corner.
He swallowed hard, the rage fading into cold, exhausted reality. He knew I was right. In a split-second life-or-death gamble, hesitation meant total wipeout.
"Fine, just... don't do that again." Keane muttered through grit teeth, leaning his back against the wall and letting his bloody ceramic shard drop to the floor.
Keith dropped his heavy baton with a clatter, collapsing onto his knees, his hands trembling violently as he buried his face in his palms.
"Gods above... the whole city... the whole damn city is gone..."
BANG! THAM-THAM-THAM!
The heavy oak door shuddered violently in its frame. Outside, the scraping of calcified bone blades against the hallway walls sounded like metal dragging across glass. The infected were throwing their weight against the wood, drawn by the echo of our voices.
"Quiet! Everyone shut your mouths!" I hissed, raising a finger to my lips.
The room fell deathly silent. The two drunkards pressed themselves as flat as they could against the far wall, clutching their kitchen knives so hard their knuckles were stark white. Keith held his breath, and Keane clamped his hand over his mouth to muffle his heavy breathing.
For two agonizing minutes, nobody moved. The wood groaned under the pressure, but the heavy iron deadbolt held firm. Deprived of immediate sight and hearing no further movement inside, the mindless thralls outside slowly began to shuffle away down the corridor, their wet, dragging footsteps fading toward the stairwell.
A collective breath swept through Room 104.
"Patricia...?"
A faint, strained voice broke the silence from the bed.
I spun around. Catherine was sitting up, leaning groggily against the wooden headboard. Her eyes were unfocused, her skin still dangerously pale, but the haze of Edrie's spell was finally clearing from her mind.
"Catherine! You're awake, don't try to stand yet. You need rest."
"What... what is that smell? And who... who are these people?"
"It's a long story, but the short version is: the city is infected, Edrie's plague took hold. The commercial district outside is overrun by mutated bone-thralls."
Catherine's eyes widened slightly, her hand instinctively reaching for her waist where usually sat.
"An outbreak...?"
"Yes Catherine, and there's some here to save us."
"Who is it."
"Eirene."
Catherine was shocked and I explained.
"Eirene went to the Town Hall to trigger the quarantine and clear the upper administrative district, she handled it her way. We're holding out here until the path is clear."
Keane squinted at Catherine, then looked over at my white paladin tabard and polished rapier, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Wait... she called you Patricia. You're a royal paladin... and a grand mage? What the hell are high-tier figures like you doing hiding out in a cheap ten-silver room at the Golden Shrimp?"
Before I could craft a careful response, Keith lifted his head from his hands, his bloodshot eyes staring at the door.
"It doesn't matter who they are, kid. Look around. We're trapped on the second floor. The lobby is a slaughterhouse, the streets are crawling with those winged horrors, and we have no food, no water, and no way out."
I stood tall, sheathing my rapier with a sharp, metallic CLICK that echoed through the quiet room.
"We stay put, keep our guard up, and conserve our energy, Eirene won't stay in that Town Hall forever. The moment she clears a corridor through the main avenue, she'll come for us. Until then, nobody opens this door. Got it?" I said, looking each of them dead in the eye.
The two drunkards nodded frantically. Keane leaned his head back against the wall with a weary sigh, and Keith simply stared at the floor, clutching his baton.
I pulled a wooden chair over to the side of the door, sat down with my rapier laid across my knees, and settled into a silent, watchful vigil.
Outside, the muffled, distant shrieks of Lulu City burning echoed through the glass, but inside Room 104, we held our line.
"Please goddess Elpis save us."