Skullgarden Graveyard

Tal, Kingdom of Morgenheim

Fall, 8th Butchermoon, Year 1876

"Are you out of your mind?! I'm not going down... down there!"

Echser's bulging eyes almost popped from their sockets as he uttered these words, his narrow face frozen somewhere between horror and disgust. By Science, how could this vagrant even ask him to descent into a freshly dug grave and crawl into a ghoul tunnel of all things, just in order to place a bomb? Didn't the lunatic realize that he was one of, maybe even the, most learned man in the whole of the Scarred Empire. He was Mortin Cornelius Echser, damn it! Master alchemist, scientist par excellence, and a genius the likes of which the world has not seen since the days of Zweistein. To call him a mental titan in a land of imbecile footstools would be the understatement of the century, that's how smart he was. How dare this... this butcher of the undead even make the suggestion.

The man must be out of his mind!

Echser paused in his mental tirade, blinking. Of course, he was out of his mind. That was akin to a professional requirement for his ilk. Only lunatics of the highest order would even consider the vocation of a lich hunter, earning their blood money by killing vampires, zombies, ghouls, ghosts, and whatnot. But that was his chosen profession, not Mortin's!

Craven...

The name said it all.

However, Echser had to admit, the lich hunter didn't look like the yellow-bellied sort. Quite the opposite... Well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and athletic, he was what you thought of when you heard: tall, dark, and handsome – if you had a thing for serial killers, that is. Even now, he seemed to emanate killing and competence. All those guns, and knives, and black leather... Definitely not the sort of man you would want to meet in a dark alley – would ever want to meet. In other words, he seemed perfectly suited to crawl through filthy, monster-infested tunnels.

Since no answer came, Echser decided on a more wheedling approach. "I thought we had agreed that my role in this... erm... partnership is that of a scholar? You take care of murder and mayhem so that I can do my job—which is to find out what secrets lurk within the flesh of these... erm... lurkers and to harvest and reprocess their internal organs in order to create those little black pills you are so fond of. I'm not a man suited to fieldwork! Only in the safety of my laboratory I can my alchemical prowess be fully unleashed." He pointed at the powerful smoke bomb that rested like a large egg at the rim of the freshly dug-out grave. "Only there can I create such marvelous devices for you."

While these words tumbled from Echser's mouth like a bunch of drunken men down a long and winding staircase, Craven just continued to stare at him from the other side of the pit. All brooding and sinister, his black cape whipping about him every time a gust of wind found its way through the rows of gravestones, one hand on that fearsome-looking saber sheathed on his hip. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Without his hat, his eyes did all the talking. Echser swallowed hard, his pronounced Addams Apple bobbing.

Those eyes...

Echser had seen the eyes of Lich Tear addicts before, though he'd never quite seen ones such as these. The eldritch narcotic caused a widening of the pupils; sometimes so much that they all but eclipsed the irises. In extreme overdose cases or in long-time addicts, this effect could spread even farther, pushing into the white. Craven's eyes, however, no longer showed any white. In fact, they showed nothing at all. Even though it was a bright day, with the sun shining directly into his face, the lich hunter's eyes didn't even shimmer. They were like holes in the world, darker by far than the ghoul tunnel down in the grave. As the silence stretched on, it became even more unnerving, devolving to downright eerie when a couple of large ravens flew from the twisted branches of a nearby tree to settle on the gravestones to the left and right of Craven. As one, they turned their beady black eyes on Echser, almost as if they knew he might be their next meal.

The sight was more than a little unnerving...

"Erm," muttered Echser. "Those... carrion birds certainly seem to like you."

No reply.

Echser's hands started trembling, so he crossed his arms bevor his chest, determined not to show any weakness. He couldn't give in to this bully, for if he caved in now, the gods alone knew what waited next. The silence stretched on... and on... and on. Sooner rather than later, the alchemist could bear it no longer. "W... will you not say anything?"

When Craven spoke, his voice held about as much warmth as the grave before them. "Master Echser... Mortin... May I call you, Mortin?"

"Er... I... well, yes, of course. I suppose there is no harm. After all, we are partners now. Friends! Aren't we?"

Craven smiled at that, showing two rows of white and perfectly even teeth. Echser relaxed a tiny fraction. So far, so good...

"See Mortin," Craven continued. "I would very much like for us to become friends. Best friends, I hope. However, right now, you are still more of a commodity to me, little more than a thing – a thing that still has to prove its usefulness. In the short time that we have been travel companions, all you did was sulk, sample your own merchandise, and lament at the injustice of an indifferent universe. Now, a lesser man than I – a man that still has emotions – might actually be hurt by such callous behavior. Have I not saved your life by taking you in as payment for a contract that almost killed me and that normally would have made me indecently rich? Without me, you would still simmer in your cell – if you were lucky, that is. Now you are free, at least as long as you remain in my guardianship. It's not that you are my slave – after all, slavery is outlawed in the Empire – but you are something rather special. You, my friend, are a dead man walking."

Echser's eyes went wide when Craven pulled a flintlock pistol from his belt. "Understand that, since you are by all rights a dead man, I could blow out that brain you seem to be so terribly fond of and splatter it all over these gravestones. Then I could stuff you with explosives, shove you down into that hole, and wait until the next ghoul gets a whiff of you." Abyssal eyes bore into Echser. "I could do that, and nobody would – could – lift a finger, especially not here, in your former home. Why, I dare say the good people of Tal would thank me for bringing down such a vile creature as Mortin Cornelius Echser, Monster of Morgenheim, a convicted mass-murderer of the highest order."

"I'm no mass murderer," Echser hissed, looking around in alarm. More quietly, he muttered, "I'm no mass murderer, damn you. All this was an accident – how was I to know that—"

"Yes, yes," Craven said. "I heard it all before. How were you to know that that damnable gizmo you bought would have such a drastic effect on your test wamsters? Who would have thought that the ancient and forbidden artifact you used might actually alter their hereditary makeup? Nobody could have guessed it would allow the vermin to multiply in the thousands, causing one of the worst famines in the history of Morgenheim..."

"Exactly!"

Craven shrugged. "Well, that happens when you experiment with the Machina. There's a reason why the technology of the Forgotten Ages has been outlawed, after all."

Echser snorted. "You sound just like all those backward thinking, science-hating know-it-alls in the academy! Stagnation is the enemy of progress, the enemy of knowledge, of life even! How are we to proceed and better ourselves if we hold on to millennia-old traditions? Why shouldn't we use the technology of the Ancients and learn from it? Because of some mystical conflict between the advocates of Magic and Machina that supposedly resulted in a war that almost destroyed the world thousands of years ago?" Echser snorted. "Pah! Fairy tales!"

"So, what you are saying is that the advancement of knowledge warrants any price – even the death of thousands?"

"It was an accident!" Echser growled, raising his hands in a gesture that managed to be both exasperated and pleading. "By Science, I will never hear the end of that one, will I?"

"You still have not answered my question."

Echser paused, breathing hard, trying even harder to push the very recent memories of his daily nightmare from his mind. "It will warrant the price! My work might very well save untold millions in the future. I think I am even close to solving the reproduction problems that haunt the race of the Kitari – and if I do, it will be all thanks to my work."

"I see," Craven muttered. "What you are saying is that your studies may someday ultimately wash the blood from your hands?"

Echser ground his teeth. "It. Was. An. Accident."

"Details, details," said Craven, waving away the words with a smile.

Echser was about to turn and storm away, but then the bounty killer reached behind his back and brought forth a leather-bound journal. The alchemist blinked and then gasped in recognition. "My notes! My notes on my experiments with wamsters!"

"Yes. I figured those are dear to you. Your former host told me it holds the fruits of your labors, does it not?"

"Fiend! Give it back. Give it back!"

"So, this is precious to you?"

"More than life, you lunatic!"

"Hmm. Interesting... By the way, did you know that with clarity there comes decisiveness?" With that, Craven threw the journal.

Echser gawped, his eyes almost popping from their sockets as he saw it skipping and disappearing down the darkness of the ghoul tunnel. "No!"

Craven smiled as only villains could. "Well, I guess you now can prove the validity of your conviction. What a great opportunity to learn something about yourself!"

************************

Greetings, my fiendish friends!

Ouch, it seems like Mortin has quite a challenge ahead of him. What do you think? Will he rise to the occasion?

Also, while we are talking about challenges: I am happy to announce, that ToR - Homecoming has passed the first round of the Open Novella Contest 2021.

A truly pleasant surprise, after a truly hard week. Needless to say, I am overjoyed and this might just be the motivation I needed to post chapters more regularly and also cobble together a better cover.

If all goes well, I should have a fresh chapter for you this weekend. 

Your eldritch entertainer,

M.