12 -- Spectral Meetings [Story]

    "Keegan's dead.  What are we doing here?" Madeleine whispered to Wing as they entered the smaller final room in the crypt.  The raised dais held a single coffin, a warrior in plate armor with a sword laid across his chest, point toward his feet, carved upon the lid.  

    "Not sure.  Different ways to commune with the dead," Wing answered.  "But be on your guard."

    Farad stepped forward and knelt in front of the coffin.  He began to pray, silently.

    The room was silent.

    He prayed out loud.  

    Still nothing.

    "Maybe we should peek inside?"  The tiefling suggested.  

    The silence became more pronounced as Farad stopped from his prayer to look at Vorthos.  

    "Just joking," Vorthos protested.

    After various other prayers resulted in nothing, Farad shook his head.  "I do not know how to put him to rest, though I sense he is uneasy.  Perhaps we must destroy this Kalarel.  Let us go."

    As they turned to leave, the heavy lid of the coffin exploded in a flurry of dust.  A humanoid skeleton girded in ornate plate armor emerged from the cloud, pointing an ornate longsword at them, the empty sockets of its skull pointed right at them. 

    "The rift must never be re-opened!" Sir Keegan said, "State your business or prepare to die!"

    Madeleine gave a low whistle of appreciation. 

    Farad turned towards the skeletal knight.  He bowed.  "Brother, I am Farad, fellow initiate of Bahamut.  We have come to redeem you."

    Sir Keegan's ghostly voice echoed through the chamber.  "I am beyond redemption, whoever you are, and the evil that corrupted me threatens to corrupt you.  Why should I not slay you to keep you from the same fallen path!"

    Vorthos felt a firm hand in his wrist as he brought his hand to his hilt.  The ranger, Naruel, shook his head at him. 

    "Whatever has befallen you, I can sense that you ache to return to the road of righteousness that all paladins aspire to.  You will not slay us.  We seek to stop interlopers who are seeking to reopen the rift.  Search your senses -- I have faith that Bahamut will grant you good judgment even now to tell friend from foe."

    The skeletal knight was silent for a moment.  Then the eyeless skull turned to regard Wing.  "You, wizard born from those in eastern lands, unnatural forces abound in this place.  Are you equipped to overcome them?"

    Wing paused, then stepped forward, summoning a light into his hand at the same time.  "I am still early in my training but I recognize that there are powerful forces at work here.  I believe that with the aid of my friends, we can overcome them collectively, and I will lend my arcane talents to that effort."

    "I fell alone in the dark.  Allies are important."  The skeletal knight surveyed them, then turned to face Naruel, "Half-elf, your cold blue eyes seem observant, but may also hide ulterior motives.  What do you see before you?"

    Naruel hesitated, then answered "I see a hero trying to right past wrongs, corrupted by dark forces."

    "False!" cried the skeleton, dust and grime shifting as he swung his blade and hit the ground in front of him.  "No hero here ... only a fiend damned to eternal torment!  Perhaps you are not worthy!"

    "Wing gives better answers than you, Nary," whispered Madeleine.  "I hope we don't have to fight him."

    "Wait," Vorthos said, stepping forward, "do not judge us so quickly, sir knight.  I was just a lad when you fell and I acknowledge that the darkness of your sins may never be washed fully away in this world.   But as another who always bears darkness within him, I know that even those who live with darkness can tell friend from foe -- look at us truly.  What are we?"  

    Sir Keegan regarded him with a creaky turn.  "Tiefling, you remember my fall?"

    "Yes, I remember they say you killed your wife and children ..."

    A rending shriek filled the anteroom as Sir Keegan dropped his longsword and grasped his head.  "Yes!  I remember!  What darkness touched me!"

    "That can not be undone,  but do not do more ill by harming those who would have been your allies in another better time.  Help us!" Vorthos urged.

    The skeleton sat heavily on the coffin from which he had emerged, hands still cradling his skull.

    "I am past redemption.  But perhaps I can grant you aid.  I cannot leave this crypt, but Aecris can," the skeletal knight said, gesturing at his longsword.  "Perhaps this elegant weapon, unlike me, can be redeemed.  I give it to you that you might purge this keep of those who seek to open the rift."

    The skeletal warrior stood up, picked up the sword, still gleaming after years in the dust, and presented its hilt to Madeleine.  "Take it, swordswoman.  I see in your heart valor and loyalty, but guard yourself lest it become recklessness and cold-heartedness against strangers."

    "Seek Bahamut's boon at the altars outside and perhaps our lord too will grant you aid.  I see that devotion to Bahamut burns in your heart and it may save you from corruption, but remember that devotion can easily be corrupted into fanaticism and inflexibility," he addressed Farad.

    "Go," he commanded.  "I hope for all of us that if you are successful that we will not meet again in this world."

    They left the anteroom and as they closed the doors the darkness fell like a curtain over the sight of the skeletal warrior standing astride his coffin, silent as the grave.