By the time they finished arguing about prices and which item the Fallen should buy, it was already morning. He ended up using 923sp with the measly 2% discount. But they were well invested.
Type: Dimensional artifact
Condition of use: Owner only
Durability: Pinnacle-H
Description: Small bag that stores up to 10 items of your choice, no matter the weight, into a pocket dimension. Money doesn't count as an item therefore the storage is infinite.
Weight: light
Type: Accessories
Condition of use: None
Durability: Medium-H
Description: The wearer will appear to be a human.
Weight: light
Type: Geographical tool
Condition of use: None
Durability: Lowest
Description: A map of Talmera
Weight: light
Type: Divine sap
Condition of use: Fallens only
Durability: Low-M
Description: A potion filled with Yggdrasil's sap. The content is enough for only two sips. Drink it to heal wounds and replenish stamina. The potion is directly linked to the divine tree, refilling the content once per week on the current floor timeline.
Weight: light
Those were the only items he could buy with the sp he had. The merchants' wares were expansive, some of them escalated to 10000 sp, others even higher. At that point, the Fallen knew how cheap the pieces of information and the appraisal were.
The baggie bag despite its weird name was a handy item. He had stored the club, map, and potion as soon as he got it. He then put on the ring and his appearance blurred before shifting to a human male.
He had shoulder-length black hair, an oval face, tanned skin, and a 1,80 meters tall, muscular build.
'I am... naked.' he thought.
It didn't bother him much when he was a skeleton, but having male genitals dangling around like some ringing bells wasn't really a sight to behold.
"Grab this, it's on the house."
Roan threw him some clothes that he couldn't wait to wear. He put on the black gambeson, which was awkwardly comfortable. The grey trousers were a perfect fit, and the belt added a bit of fashion.
'He might be a shameless shady merchant, but at least his wares are of excellent quality.' the Fallen thought.
"Those are small gifts. The gambeson will allow you to resist sword cuts to some extent, the brunt of the impact will still hurt tho. And I won't talk about the blunt weapons. The trousers and belt are... well, it's just for fashion."
"Thanks, Roan."
"No need for that, I'm your helper, remember?"
Indeed, but he was also a merchant. Goods of those qualities would probably cost 100sp each. That's why the Fallen was surprised. It was the first time, in this life at least, that somebody gifted him something. From the moment he awoke, the dungeon kept taking from the Fallen: his sanity, humanity, pride and most of all his memories. Therefore, the Fallen saw the merchant in a new light despite his... shady look.
"Where to now?"
"Me? I'll roam around for a bit. We might meet somewhere else, who knows. But now that I know a Fallen is back, I'll come by Sanctuaire more often."
"Alright."
"You? I suggest you go to Cartela, the last bastion of humanity. Look for allies there to take down the necromancer. Also, I have three last pieces of information for you."
The skeleton in human appearance listened attentively.
"First, if you use another altar other than the previous one, it will reset from that point. Meaning, they are some kind of save points. There is one in Cartela, up to you to find it."
That was music to the Fallen's ears. It meant that he didn't need to start from the beginning if he found another altar in the future.
"Second, beware of your stamina. You are a Fallen, not an undead. You guys have the particularity to use your soul as a container of stamina or life energy, whatever you want to call it. And since fighting is quite a taxing activity, the soul will tire out eventually, like it did when I picked you up. But strangely, you can keep on going with other manual labor for days without rest. Even I don't understand this fully."
This information was useful since it meant that rest was still essential, especially after fights. He had to be cautious of his stamina in the future.
"Finally, beware of the Sacred Fire Church. "
"The what?"
"You've gone deaf? I said the Sacred Fire Church. Pyromancers from the Church keep Drogar's undead away from the city. They're also a bunch of fanatics, so if those humans learn of your skeleton appearance..., well, you understand."
"Right."
"Anyway, time for me to go."
Roan adjusted his fedora, stood up, took something out of his pocket and a blue portal appeared behind him.
WOOSH.
"Until next time, Fallen."
He walked right in and disappeared through the portal.
The Fallen, in human appearance now, blinked multiple times at the strange phenomenon, then took out the map. Looking at it, he realized Cartela wasn't a short walk from Ula. It would probably take him two months to walk there, if not more. Unless he found another means of transportation on the way. At the thought, he couldn't help but envy Roan's portable teleportation device.
"Well, no need to tarry on it. Let's head out."
***
The Fallen had walked towards the north in direction of Cartela. To his surprise, it hadn't taken him too long to reach halfway: around a month. Since the need to sleep or eat was absent, he had kept walking, using the altar's potion to replenish his stamina the few times he needed it.
The Ula graveyard was located way down to the south, at the edge of the kingdom's map. Ironically, Cartela was in the opposite direction, up north, at the foot of the tallest mountain of Talmera. It almost had seemed like the dungeon was trying to pull a prank on the poor contender to its floors.
On his way up, the Fallen had had to take detours because of the growing undead presence. Though, it might not have been part of the prank this time. Those rotten pieces of bone and flesh were everywhere. Literally everywhere: mountain passes, villages, cities, etc.
He had tried to take off his ring to look like one of them. Fruitless endeavor. Somehow they could tell he wasn't undead... When possible, the Fallen had paved his way with Bone crusher to amass sp, but their overwhelming numbers sometimes required him to make tactical withdrawals.
Currently, the Fallen was around the center of the kingdom, taking a break. The Yggdrasil potion was great, but its uses were limited. The Fallen had been so focused on walking and running away that he only saw it now: a landscape filled with ashes, dead trees, and devastation. The clouds obstructed the sunlight even more than before, dooming those lands to an unending night.
His break over, he continued his journey. Somewhere along the line, he almost crossed the path of a massive army waiting near a huge city like mindless puppets. From the distance, they looked like a sea of death that stretched as far as the horizon. Which didn't look good at all. If those undeads planned on attacking Cartela...
The Fallen had sped up the pace. Not that it would change anything if he somehow arrived there before they potentially did, but he just wanted to put as many kilometers as possible between him and those walking corpses.
***
A morning two days later, he was taking a break by the Calm's riverside, a river three weeks on foot from Cartela. Black clouds still blocked the sunlight but a small part of it was allowed to bless the surrounding with their presence.
The Fallen rested on the stony edge of the river, in a lotus position, analyzing the landscapes. In front of him, dead trees still covered his visions. His gaze traveled up north towards Cartela, to reach an area where leaves timidly showed themselves as if on the lookout for a potential threat. A clear contrast was appearing there, illustrating a fight between life and death, trees being the actors. Then, a voice mixed with splashing sounds took out the Fallen of his contemplation.
Intrigued, he crawled his way to the source, while remaining as stealthy as possible. The closer he got, the clearer the sound was. The Fallen dragged himself closer until he could make out what the voice said.
"Hum, hum, hum. Where does the grace lay in those dark times, brought upon us by the Deceiver? Where is the promised hero? With nowhere to run or to hide. Doom awaits us all. But fear not my child, as hope is not yet lost. Embrace the sacred flames, in there, lies your salvation."
Taken aback by the sound, the Fallen crouched in the nearby bushes. Weeks of constant threats awakened in him a cautiousness he previously lacked. When he neared the source of this appealing voice, almost on par with the Maiden, another one, deeper and rougher, interrupted his investigation.
"My lady, kindlings might be nearby. We must hurry to the city."
The voice was closer than he thought, a lot closer. He could make out an armored foot right in front of his eye sockets.
"In a minute. Let me take a proper bath! It's been a week since the last one, I cannot stand my own stench anymore!"
"But, my lady..."
"Enough, go back on the lookout."
"Yes, my lady."
The guard agreed readily and silently went back into the grey woods.
Now was the Fallen's chance to ascertain the surroundings were safe. His goal nearly in reach, he pushed the bushes clogging his vision to the side.
There, in the clear water, a mesmerizing creature had her back turned towards him. Wet, shoulder level, red hair covered a sun-tanned back which was riddled with chain marks and scars. A silver ring on the right-hand middle finger was visible as it ran through her hair, revealing thin but toned arms. Weirdly enough, this masculine side of her didn't undermine her beauty one bit.
His imaginary heart started beating faster, as she slowly turned in his direction, ready to get out of the river. The skeleton might have lost his human needs, but somehow his desires remained.
However, the Fallen almost stumbled in the bushes when he saw the lady's beard at the end of her oval face. Red hairs were also covering her well-developed pectoral muscles probably due to years of training. The only saving grace was the woman's beautiful round blue eyes. Shocked, he swore to never again ascertain the surroundings were safe when he heard a beautiful voice, apart from the Maiden's. He then crawled back to safety but made too much noise in doing so.
"Who's there!?"
He froze for a second, hoping the lady would just think it was her imagination. But she grabbed a sword placed on top of her clothes, neatly placed on the ground, that lit on fire upon touch. The threat confirmed, he stood up and ran for his life like he had practiced countless times during his journey to the north.
"An Undead?!"
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