
Some weeks ago. . .
When the town was abandoned, a certain skeleton was removed from the closet, had the paper talismans that were keeping him sealed broken, but before he could emerge and enact revenge on the demons who sealed him, his casket was thrown into the ground and buried. The problem with being a revenant is that while immortality is nice, there are a lot of drawbacks.
First, it doesn’t prevent being killed. Killed, probably is not the right word because the only thing that can truly finish a revenant is having their grudge fulfilled. But if they get killed, then they lose a level when they come back. That is the situation that the revenant in question was in now. Yet again, he had been multi-killed back to level 1. It was a far cry from where he’d been back in the days where he had been alive.
A second problem with the revenant's form of immortality is that dying at level 1 takes a big toll. For example, he could no longer remember his old name. Yes, he had some memories about life before death, but they were vague. He remembered being a member of the hero’s party and how the hero betrayed them all. That memory would never leave him. Fighting constant non-stop waves of demons, day after day, never getting a chance to sleep and then the hero and the healer gave up.
He and the remaining party members fought. They defeated enough demons that any other race it would have been considered genocide. He remembered he used to be human. He remembered being over the level 20 cap. He can, and did defeat tier 3 demons. But no matter how strong or high level he became it wasn’t enough. Eventually, the endless battle took a toll on everyone. Their forces were whittled down little by little. And when the tier 4 demon towered over the battlefield like some kind of demi-god they knew that this would be the end of the last, best hope for humanity. If only the hero hadn’t abandoned them, everyone had that curse on their lips in their dying breath. A whole race put their hopes on him and he just quit because it was getting too tough.
He died full of bitterness and regret, expecting that to be the end. However, as a ghost floating over the battlefield, he watched the demons, sometimes imps that he could easily defeat by the thousands looting his corpse, he only became more bitter. When the bodies were left to rot and extra disgusting demons that cultivated death or decay sit down to cultivate amongst the massacre a grey blob appeared before him.
“You bear a grudge.” The ooze spoke directly into his soul.
The slain warrior knew that he was being addressed by a deity, the god of grudges. “I curse this infestation of hell.”
“Will you pay the price to enact that curse?” The blob’s voice was flat, emotionless.
“What price?” The soul asked.
“You will not ever be alive, you will be a creature fueled by hatred.” The blob simply explained. “You will never find peace, not until your grudge is fulfilled.”
The man didn’t hesitate. “I’ll do it. As the tank for the hero’s party I will complete the quest the goddess of purity gave us.”
“So be it.” The blob didn’t sound excited or disappointed, only emotionless. “Your class given to you by the goddess of purity will be forfeit. From now on, you will be one of mine, a dark knight of the god of grudges, an undying corpse with one unrelenting, unstoppable purpose, to fulfill the grudge that keeps you from finding peace until it is fulfilled.”
And so, he rose from the dead. He shamelessly cut down unsuspecting imps that were cultivating. More imps came to fight him, but never any of the high generals from the previous battle. The fact that he was no longer human meant that they didn’t have to deal with him. Eventually, enough imps with the help of second tiered demons defeated him.
They thought that the had removed a pesky threat, they were wrong.
Another night later and more imps were sent back to hell while cultivating in the battle field. This kept going on for weeks, then months. He cleared the battlefield, but didn’t bury the dead. He couldn’t. The grudge drew him to seek out more demons. He went from place to place, purging whole towns of demons, then counties. Eventually, he got to the level cap of 20 and he could match tier 3 a single tier demon.
If enough tier 3 demons fought him he’d die. But that was only a setback. It didn’t take long for him to get back up and start fighting again.
But eventually, the demons figured out how to stop him. That is how he ended up sealed. But that only stopped him temporarily. Because, the seals didn’t really seal him. They just isolated him from detecting any demons. They figured out how revenants work and came up with countermeasures. If a revenant can’t sense the object of their grudge, they go into torpor.
This too was only temporary. Nothing can hold back entropy. Seals will fail eventually.
Being released likely was on purpose the first time. He came to in a completely different biome. Perhaps some demon thought to be sneaky and released him on their rivals in another land. It didn’t matter, he picked himself up and slowly crawled back up to level 20 through relentless pursuit. Eventually though, he was caught by high enough tiered demons working together when the problem became too much for them to ignore. Then the cycle repeated again, several times.
The last time was his fault though. He killed a man, a baron that was demon possessed. After that, he went back to the demon’s nest and killed them all, or attempted to. But it didn’t go as planned. He found the man who he’d murdered’s wife in a manor. He admonished her to leave. But she didn’t listen. Instead, after she’d contacted her superiors and a tier 3 demon came and defeated him with the others. This time he didn’t have enough time to get up to level 20, and lost a battle that before he could have one.
Someone looked like they were going to break him out. When the seals were broken, he sensed demons in the manor and in the town. But also, he sensed a kindred sort of power. It was diminutive in size but steeped in a very familiar power, that bestowed upon himself, a fellow cursed existence filled with a grudge. But he was a skeleton in a casket, knocked back down to level 1 and buried six feet under. The presence killed all the demons in the town and without any demons in his vicinity he went back into torpor.
He awakened when demons came back into the town, and resumed trying to break out and escape.
—----
“What happened here?” An imp mentioned to its kin.
A party of imps walked down main street, headed towards the adventurer’s guild. They had traveled this land, looking for more concrete evidence of the fabled 100 year old ginger, a prized cultivation resource.
“I don’t know.” Another imp said. “It looks like everyone packed up and left.”
“You think there are any stragglers?” The first imp asked.
“We should check.” An imp chuckled. “They might be hiding.”
None of the imps actually cared if there were stragglers or not. They had a silent agreement that it would be a good excuse to loot the town while not violating their contract.
By the time night fell, they had only amassed a pile of junk. The town had been cleaned out fairly well. The stuff left behind was mostly useless to them or two heavy to be used.
One imp threw a stone pipe into the pile. “Where’d you get that?”
The other imp pointed to the manor. “Got it from that noble’s residence. It might have gone to a bathtub, but someone already took the tub.”
“Looks like this place is a waste of time.” Another imp spat.
“Did you search the stables?” The imp pointed to the partly burnt building. “It might be a long shot but they could have something we could sell in the next town.”
“Not yet.” The imp shrugged. “We could just burn it and cultivate the fire.”
The imp nodded. Most of the buildings were primarily stone but there was enough flammable material around that they could start a bonfire.
It was at that moment that they noticed one of their number was missing.
“What happened to apprentice Kyle?” An imp looked around.
“I think they were searching the grounds.” The imp stated.
“Let's go look.” Two imps headed out, starting with the stables.
They rounded around the stable and one imp tripped to the ground. “What was that?”
He tried to get up. “Something’s grabbed my hoof!”
The first imp saw a skeletal hand grasping the limb, seemingly growing out of the dirt. “What in the world?”
A figure missing a hand, dressed in rags, came out of the stables, carrying a sword.
“That’s Kyle’s sword!” The imp cursed.
“You killed Kyle!” The restrained imp gasped.
“Bastard!” Was the last thing the imp said.
The figure stabbed the sword into the ground and shouted an attack, “Ground teeth!”
Reddish, black blades of various sizes sprouted from the ground. They were curved and kinda looked like teeth. But they impaled the two imps before vanishing back into shadows when the figure pulled the sword out of the ground.
The dark knight continued stalking through the night until he’d finished off the whole party of imps. Over the course of a week, more and more imps came and he finished them off too.
After that, the revenant armored himself up and armed himself with what he could put together from the drops the imps left. He set out downstream.
He cleared out another town. But the tier 2 demon that controlled it turned out to be a problem. However, the demon wasn’t very smart.
He came back the next night and baited the remaining demons closer and closer to the river. If there was one thing that he’d learned early on it was that the water dwellers hated the demons, not quite as much as he did. But they kept an eye on the shores and would take a chance if any demons dared get too close.
The demon had him on the back foot. And he played the part well. He retreated, kept giving ground until he was knee deep in the river. It wasn’t hard, at his low level, he wasn’t a match for the tier 2 demon.
The tier 2 demon blazed like a fireball at him, slamming into his chest with a flaming punch. However, that was exactly what the dark knight wanted.
Tendrils of water came out of the river and grasped the demon’s limbs.
The demon burned brighter, but the water tendrils coiled more. The red-skinned tier 2 demon got engulfed, extinguished and dragged down into a watery grave.
And the dark knight revenant finally leveled up. Now he was a level 2 dark knight.
He gave the invisible creatures of the water a respectful nod, finished clearing out the town of demons and refused to talk to any of the humans. He learned that mistake last time. When some tried to follow him, he shook his head. Eventually, he left them behind and headed downstream, searing for more demons in the next town adjacent to the river. Hopefully this trick would work enough times to get him to level 10 when he’d be able to face a tier 2 demon without any tricks.
“You killed Kyle!” The restrained imp gasped.
“Bastard!” Was the last thing the imp said.
I laughed out loud on this. Really love this story, I may have been quiet for a while and not singing this story as much praise as it deserves, but this year has been really busy, and I'm moving to Scotland in January.
No problem, most people on here tend to stay quiet.
Ohmygod! At least it wasn't Kenny.