The sound of buildings shattering and the roads being demolished echoed throughout the ground, sending a rumble through the floor, followed by the sound of the ceiling struggling to not collapse on itself, along with the screeches of eldrites.
Arthur woke up in a startle, instinctively jumping out of the bed as he quickly raced up the stairs, tripping multiple times, until he entered a long corridor and looked to his right.
Off to the windows next to the door, the old crone stared outside, failing to notice the commotion that Arthur had created on the way up.
Of course, whatever was going on outside was far louder, and quite frankly, much more interesting.
"Nan, what's going on?" he called out as he walked over, shuddering at each rumble. "Why aren't you hiding in the basement?"
The crone looked over her shoulder, gesturing for him to come over to the window as she said:
"Take a look for yourself, young'un. They're out there: the pilgrims. Huntin' the eldrites, they are."
Eager to see what a proper fight against the eldrites looked like, Arthur joined her in looking out the broken window.
His eyes widened as he took notice of the once standing buildings on his left now reduced to nothing but piles of rubble. Mixed in along with the rubble were pools of the same mucus that Arthur saw before, along with severed eldrite limbs, and their massive bodies buried underneath.
The already cracked cobble roads now looked as though an earthquake had occurred, ruptured with large crevices, large enough for one to plummet all the way into hell.
Above laid nothing interesting, A sky of grey clouds, no matter where he looked, filled his vision, along with the destroyed great bridge off to the right.
"See all those dead eldrites on the rooftops?" the crone asked, pointing across the street off to the right, where viscera and mucus painted the buildings in their fetid colours. "The pilgrims are takin' care o' them. Without 'em, we'd be nothin' but a bunch of rottin' eggs down in our homes. Erthyl would be more of a home to eldrites than man without 'em."
Arthur, looking down and up the street for the pilgrims, but he no matter where he looked, he couldn't find any, which led him to ask:
"Nan, where are—"
His words were sliced right through by the recoil of a bowstring launching an arrow. Not just any bow and arrow, though, but one that emitted a raucous low-pitch that echoed upon release, as though a massive golem fired the arrow.
A screech that made the hairs on Arthur's body stand up followed immediately after, before it slowly died off. A strong shockwave preceded the silence, and the sound of debris crashing everywhere had him feeling like he was in the middle of a warzone.
"There's one," the crone said, nearly sticking her head out the window. "He's high above, on the rooftops, huntin' his prey."
"All on his own?" Arthur asked, glancing between her head full of white frizzled hair and the rooftops, still struggling to find this pilgrim she mentioned.
They remained in silence for a bit, letting the heavy and daunting air of war weigh heavy on their heads. Arthur was still stuck on the idea of a Pilgrim handling an onslaught of eldrites, whose sizes were comparable to the buildings, all on their own.
"Those ones don't head out on their own, young'un," the crone replied after a long while. She peeked her head out of a shattered glass pane as silence graced their ears, before adding:
"They're leaders, the ones that hunt from afar, while the ones that fight up close work under his wing." She turned her gaze back to him. "You're bound to be a pilgrim, I tell ya. No one just kills an eldrite by accident."
"If there are any survivors," yelled a strong, mature masculine voice, "emerge from your hiding. The coast is clear... for now. Pilgrims are here."
"Come on," the crone said, with a lively voice, dragging Arthur out as though she were a child that wanted to go into a candy shop, "we need all the help we can get."
Arthur looked around as he stepped out, taking a deep breath that he quickly regretted, nearly vomiting as the stench of rotting corpses and mucus filled the air.
He looked up upon hearing the light footsteps of a group walking to his left to find four people, each bearing a weapon in their hands and wearing elegant clothing that made him question if they were noblemen and women.
Two of the four held large scythes, while one held a glaive with a rectangular-shaped, serrated blade.
Arthur felt a shiver run across his body as he watched green blood drip from the glaive's teeth. Certainly, as opposed to the scythe, it echoed a savage and crude way of fighting against one's foes, as though the goal was to dismember, rather than kill.
Perhaps a testament to the nature of the wielder itself?
He shook his head, breaking free of his imagination as he observed the last one, who wielded a great mace that rested against his shoulder, wearing armour that Arthur recognized from before as the armour that Sir Bertrand also possessed in the storage room of his demesne.
'Was Sir Bertrand a pilgrim?' he wondered, staring at the beige bones that were molded into vambraces, chestplates, greaves, and even a helmet.
Feeling his skin crawl as he stared at the armour, he took his attention to the mace. Oddly enough, even the great mace was identical. The memories of him swinging around that exact mace, only to end up destroying the floor in Sir Bertrand's armour, flooded his mind.
His attention, however, was quickly diverted to the same voice from above that said:
"Are there any others with you?"
"No, good pilgrim," the crone replied, looking up. "We're but the only ones I know who are still alive in this part of town."
Immediately after her answer, Arthur was startled by the sight of the hiding pilgrim landing on the road just in front of him, holding a bow as large as himself. He watched as the man slowly rose from his crouched position, who stared right back into Arthur's eyes.
The pilgrim wore a black facemask, but the rest of his face revealed pale skin, filled with wrinkles all around his eyes that were fixed in a squint. A full head of medium-length, grey hair was the only colour, apart from his pale face, was the only thing that contrasted against his charcoal-black trousers and overcoat.
Truly a masterwork by the tailor if Arthur could say he had seen fine clothing in his life.
"You," said the pilgrim revealing a gravelly and flat voice as he set his massive bow and quiver down, before stepping just a hand's length away from Arthur's face staring deep into his eyes.
The others watched as the pilgrim stood much shorter, at a height reaching Arthur's collar bone.
"You wear the clothing of a page," the pilgrim continued, speaking slowly enough for one to count the words. He turned his head to the side, staring through the corners of his squinted eyes as he added:
"Who do you work for?"