I felt a stinging pain in my arm. Blood ran down from my injured elbow to my fingertips, making it difficult to properly hold my sword. The wound hurt like hell. I didn't have enough spiritual energy to deal with the pain, so I just had to take it. I was facing a large opponent. Grey skin, tiny face. He had a shield that was just as tiny and swung some sort of battle axe, though calling that an axe would be an insult to most craftsmen in the world.
I didn't bother parrying, my arm was already injured, there was no point in also breaking it. I feigned an attack with my sword, only to strike him with a knife with my other hand, causing him to collapse on the floor. I reached for my backpack, using the wine to rinse the wound suppressing a cry at the pain, then tying it up with a bandage.
I looked around. I was in some sort of mineshaft. I had no idea how I had gotten there in the first place. I didn't find anything else of much use in the backpack, except for a map I couldn't read. There was a strange hum in the air. Singing silver, I supposed. I didn't pay it any mind though. I walked along the mineshaft until I found myself in a large cave, with a tree in the middle. I approached the tree. The inhabitants were so friendly as to greet me with a shower of arrows.
I deflected them with my sword before flying up the tree. It didn't take any spiritual energy though, which surprised me. There was a city at the top, but it didn't surprise me at this point, after all I had seen. I didn't see anyone, so I turned to get a better look at the environment.
The buildings weren't very big. Well, no, they were, but they were built for small people. They were rather simple, made from the same stone as the entire cave, but the stone was beautifully ornamented. Intricate patterns surrounded the doorways and windows, curved ledges marking the edge of the roofs. I walked around the small city. I didn't see any inhabitants though, nor did I see any contraptions that could have shot off the arrows from earlier. What I did see though, was an old man.
I couldn't see his face, it was covered by the white bangs of his hair. He was sharpening the sword, the rhythmic scraping of stone against metal creating an eery ambience. The sword glowed white. Crying silver. The man looked up. His eyes looked empty, his face looked like a single desperate wish to end it all, but something seemed to keep him going. His expression shifted as he saw me. He opened his mouth, his voice a hoarse whisper, filled with sorrow, regret and hatred.
"Fenrir."
The word sent a shiver down my spine. I wasn't really surprised that he thought I was the Ruler. All Dukes looked basically the same, after all. What surprised me more was that he knew the Ruler's name.
He was still looking at me, sharpening his blade. There was a slight red glow in his eyes. Was this Fafnir, too? He continued speaking.
"In the end I couldn't kill you, could I?"
I didn't instantly respond. This was probably Fafnir, and Fafnir was a madman. I didn't want him to kill me again. I was still unsure why I was alive at this point, but for now, that didn't matter. After some time, I opened my mouth.
"Doesn't seem like you could."
My words never reached his ears. The old man died before I could speak. He collapsed on his chair, his blade still in his hands. What an unfitting end for a man like himself. I got closer to his corpse, taking the sword from his hands. I got a better look at the stone he was sharpening it with, too. It didn't look like any grindstone of sorts at all. It was more of a sharp rock, not designed for sharpening anything in the first place. The sword wasn't sharp either.
The old man probably didn't even know what he was doing. Age was an ugly thing. I took both the sword and stone with me as I headed towards the largest building of the city. It looked like some kind of shrine, and it felt alive. The building was humming, emitting a strange glow from the outside. The door was large enough to fit me twice in height. It was most likely some kind of religious building.
The inside was very bright. The walls were giving off an eerie glow. The entire surface of the walls was covered with crying silver. It was a circular building, with a tower in the middle. Right below it, there was a large circle of chairs, surrounding an extinguished campfire. The rest was empty. The entire place looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time, but it didn't explain the arrows, and it troubled me.
I headed outside again. Luckily, I found myself surrounded by a group of dwarves, pointing their bows and crossbows and whatnot at me. That saved me the pain of finding them. They fired off. The arrows flew at me all at the same time, but I was confident that I could deflect them. I released my spiritual energy. Or rather, I tried, but instead of releasing into the air, it poured straight into the sword in my hand. It felt like time slowed down.
The arrows were still coming at me, but they felt slow. I swung my sword once, deflecting all of the arrows at the same time. This was enough to frighten the dwarves and they ran away. I didn't follow them. After all, I had no business with them. I continued exploring the city. There was another large building, but not quite as large as the temple from earlier.
It was a prison of sorts. It was one straight corridor. On one side, there were cells, on the other, torture devices. There weren't any prisoners, and I wasn't surprised. I didn't even know why they had that big of a prison when they were the only people in the entire cave. One single cell looked like it had been used at all. There were bloodstains and cut ropes that looked like they had been lying there for a very long time. I didn't find anything that indicated my location, though.
Then I passed out.
Sike. I didn't. Did I get you? Hope I did. I headed outside of the prison-like building. I checked pretty much the entire rest of the city as well, but I didn't find anything of significance.
I jumped down the tree. Now I just needed to get out of this cave.