Mythica 1, Chapter 5.

Chapter 5.

The sense of movement ceased, and Sabine felt her soul settle, taking root in the object before her. She was in another body, but whose body was it this time? Opening her eyes did nothing, save for allowing the dirt compacted around her to pour into her eye. The soil was damp and full of twigs, but this new body didn’t seem to be bothered by something getting in her eye.

Emerge to live again.

The strange words from Gnessos’ will appeared once more. This time, there was no compulsion, only a feeling of nudging. Whatever portion of the god’s being it was that provided these words, it did not demand, only suggested. Sabine could live with that, so she did as she was asked. It wasn’t like she wanted to be buried underground for the rest of her existence. She began to push at the soil covering her, and moving through it was easier than she had expected. The grave that this body lay in seemed to be recently dug, so whatever body it was that she currently wore, it was relatively fresh.

Revulsion filled Sabine’s mind as she pushed upward, her mind finally realizing the reality of her new existence. What had she become, some creature of undeath that used an unfortunate’s body to dig itself from a grave? She lay there for some time, trying to figure some way out of this existence. Sadly, there was no path for her other than forward, to sit here and wallow in disgust was to give up, and Sabine never gave up that easily.

The earth around her shifted a bit and before long, one of her hands burst forth into the cold night air. It took time, but she was able to widen the hole where the hand had broken free and pushed her way slowly from the shallow grave. At least, this time, she was dressed in something more than a thin gown.

Sabine wore leather pants, a shirt that might have been white at one time, but was now a bloodstained mess, boots, and a fur lined leather jerkin. There was no purse full of coins, or any weapons on her person. Given the slashes in her garments and the congealing blood, she had likely been robbed, murdered, and thrown into a shallow grave by the side of a road. It was a sad end for whoever this person had once been.

“What now,” Sabine said to herself.

A new ability has been granted by your master, Call of the Grave. This is a passive ability that allows you to seek the nearest burial grounds. It will not work on individual graves and will not work on consecrated ground.

Visit the nearest graveyard and speak the name Hamish to summon your advisor.

Update. Due to the infusion of light and life during the creation of this revenant, your Call of the Grave will now function upon consecrated ground.

The second part of the notification, the one with the update felt different from the first. Gnessos’ essence controlled the first, but something else was responsible for the second. These messages had told her of a new ability but gave her no idea how to use it. Calming herself, Sabine tried to focus on her senses. Sound and sight were still there, as was hearing. Her touch was a bit off, she could feel things, but there was a lack of sensitivity to temperature and pain. Looking around at the soil she had just emerged from; Sabine found a broken twig with a sharp end. Poking her hand with the twig, Sabine could only feel the pressure, not the pain of the wood piercing her skin.

Once pricked, her body oozed a drop of strange black goo. It wasn’t blood, it was something not found in any living human body. Whatever it was, it quickly dried and then flaked off, leaving clean and healed skin where the twig had poked her hand. She would have loved to have such an ability when she was still alive, but it was good to know that there were at least some advantages to becoming a revenant.

Closing her eyes, Sabine tried to focus on her new ability. At first, she felt foolish and worried that this was all a waste of time, but after a bit, her mind calmed. She began to feel a light pull toward what she assumed was the direction of the nearest graveyard. The ability wasn’t obtrusive, and as she continued to focus on it, Sabine got the feeling that the road to the east would lead her toward her goal.

With nothing else to lose, she began walking along the dark path. The road wasn’t very wide, but given the wheel ruts worn into it, the track saw regular enough use. Snow covered much of the ground, save for the freshly dug grave she had just emerged from. Wherever she was, it was early winter if she were to guess. Sabine didn’t recognize any landmarks, and only had Gnessos’ assurance that she was in eastern Deira. Gnessos might be many things, most of them likely not good, but Sabine didn’t get the feeling that he was a liar.

After a few minutes of walking, Sabine began to realize a few things. The first was that her vision had improved. The moon was only a sliver in the sky and yet, she could make out details as if it were late afternoon and not the middle of the night. Cold didn’t affect her as there was no body heat to try and preserve. If she had been alive, what she wore wouldn’t have been nearly enough for this temperature and she would have frostbite soon.

Sabine could tell that the heat of summer would also do little to slow her down. The only problem she could foresee was if she stopped for too long in one place without moving, her body might freeze entirely. Waiting for spring thaw to roll around before she could continue would be a bad start to her journey.

Another thing Sabine noticed was that she could sense life forces. A deer, a possum, and a few other animals had made noises nearby as she traveled, and when she concentrated on the direction the sounds came from, she could sense their life force like a faint white glow if they were close enough and sense their general location if they were out of sight. None of the forest creatures came near her, the animals somehow instinctively knowing that she was unnatural and no longer belonged among the living.

One other benefit was that she didn’t need to breathe anymore. By not needing to breathe, she could run instead of walking, cutting down on travel time. After running for a half hour, Sabine found that her stamina wasn’t unlimited like she had originally thought. Instead of sweating and panting for breath, her body just kind of slowed down as her weariness grew. Switching to a slow walk, the feeling of weariness began to recede, and after a few minutes, she felt normal again. While she couldn’t just sprint wherever she needed to go, a pace between a slow jog and a fast walk could be kept up almost indefinitely.

She passed a few homesteads on her journey, most were quiet for the night as the farmers, laborers, and their families would be fast asleep at this hour. As Sabine continued her journey, the density of homes decreased to a scattered few, and many of them appeared to have been long abandoned. Sabine’s destination was off the main road, along a small, overgrown pathway. The graveyard was large but mostly unmarked, only a few stones remained of what had once been a wall surrounding the area. Sabine could feel it, though, and didn’t need any markers to point out where the consecrated ground began.

Over time, the locals probably forgot the purpose that this area once served, any evidence of it being a burial ground was lost to time. The stones that made up the borders of the graveyard had mostly been hauled away over the years and were probably part of the walls of the nearby homes. The builders would be none the wiser as to their building material’s macabre past. Sabine felt pressure as she stepped over the line where the stone wall had once stood.

You have crossed into hallowed ground, normally this area is anathema to the undead, but your dual nature has allowed you to resist any damage and you will only experience a growing sense of uneasiness the longer you stay here.

Another strange notification, and while they were helpful, it was a bit jarring and disturbing to see them pop up so often. Recalling her prior instructions, Sabine got ready to call out for whoever this Hamish advisor was. Sounds in the distance stopped her, and Sabine stalked her way deeper into the forgotten graveyard. Low voices were now heard, muffled like they were coming through a wall, or from behind a partially closed window.

“I need more light,” one voice complained.

“You don’t need that much light to dig a hole. If we light this place up like a beacon, someone might spot it from the road and come by and ruin a good thing for us,” A second voice said.

“There’s no one out here, and If anyone comes by, we’ll deal with them like we did the one that told us about this place,” the first voice said.

“We’ll deal with it? You didn’t want no part of that, left the killin’ to me and Darvak, you did. Shaking in your boots you were. If there’s more work like that to do, me and Darvak will be the ones that has to do it again, I suppose,” the second voice said.

“I ain’t scared, I was just raised different than you two. Seems to me that we could have cut her in for a piece of the action, why kill her? It served no purpose and she had barely enough coin in her purse to get drunk on. What if someone comes looking for her?” the first voice whined.

“You’re an idiot, if anyone comes to us looking for her, it’s because you should have helped Darvak hide the body better. I will give you one thing, you’re probably right about the coin she had on her. Want to bet that Darvak is doing just what you said, getting drunk off it when he’s supposed to be buying us more supplies? He’s been gone since the afternoon,” the second voice complained.

The two continued to argue as they did whatever it was that they were doing in the graveyard. Sabine felt a burning anger rise in her as she listened, and it was nearly impossible to keep herself from charging toward the two conversationalists and tearing them apart with her bare hands. Images flashed into her mind, ones that didn’t come from Sabine.

She was experiencing the fading memories of the body she wore. The young woman had hired these men as laborers to help her find a treasure that was supposedly buried in the forgotten graveyard. They accepted her offer and even helped her with the initial excavation. Once they realized there really might be something valuable in this spot, they attacked her.

The men had taken her meager funds and the one called Darvak, the mean one with a leather patch covering half his face, had buried her on the side of the road on his way to town for supplies. She had been still alive when he buried her, but thankfully, she had passed out and didn’t have to experience the slow asphyxiation that was her true cause of death.

Sabine fought against the rage building in her, rage over the violent death of a young woman who did nothing wrong. Losing herself to rage wasn’t the only problem, the woman’s memories tried to supplant her own, and Sabine was having trouble determining which were really hers. She felt herself slip away as her soul and the body it controlled were hijacked by the spirit of vengeance that the murder had created. Was this what it meant to be a revenant? Was Sabine doomed to lose herself to the monster she had become?

Sabine thought she glimpsed something, her undead eyes noticing details her mortal ones would have never seen. A grey mist was flowing into her body, and that mist was the remnant of the woman’s spirit, trying to reoccupy the body and enact her revenge. The more the mist entered the body, the less of Sabine there was.

You are a revenant, a direct creation of the great Gnessos himself. Your ancestry grants you limited command over lesser undead. Do not fall to such a weak spirit. Prove your worthiness to me.

The strange words that appeared before her galvanized Sabine, and her natural stubbornness kicked in. With only one hand still under her control, Sabine grabbed at the mist and was surprised to find that it had substance wherever she touched it. The grip was difficult to maintain, and the mist felt like a thick syrup as Sabine pulled. Her other hand, under the control of the spirit, tried to stop her by prying Sabine’s fingers loose.

“Move on spirit, this body is mine now,” Sabine growled in a low voice, trying her best not to alert the two grave robbers nearby. The command held some force and Sabine felt the hand that the spirit controlled go limp at her side. Sabine pulled and more of the mist was yanked from her new body. Inch by inch she removed the remnants of the woman’s spirit. She could tell that the woman wasn’t truly in the mist, her soul had moved on. The mist was just an echo of her passing, it was her anger, fear, and loss made form.

“Leave this body, I will see that vengeance is yours. I promise you this,” Sabine said. The mist relented, and Sabine pulled the last of it free from her. As it dissipated into the night breeze, Sabine could feel it urging her to keep her oath.

“You can say a lot of things about me, but I’m a person who keeps her word,” Sabine whispered to the fading spirit. With the body once again Sabine’s to control, she stalked toward her prey, toward the two arguing grave robbers whose evil greed had ended a young woman’s life before she had a chance to really live it.