Janitorial Deconstruction (We’re just covered in evil goo, honest)

Night had fallen over Fortress Town when history was, to the consternation of many, rewritten again.

Alma had been keeping vigil over the temple, hand pressed against the remains of an ancient column, eyes shut in quiet concentration and meditation as she felt the air surrounding her and the weathered stone against her fingertips, passing her thoughts into the essence of this world in the hopes that some of the spirits that had become endeared to this piece of masonry from times past would hear.

People always came to the temple with requests for safety, for prosperity, and for many other things besides. It was never clear when a Spirit would act, or for whom, be it to pass on a blessing, push things in the oddest, slightest ways, or for those that were particularly mysterious and inscrutable, choose to incarnate into a syhee.

Nonetheless, and regardless of what Alma might have once been years ago, she chose to pass on the regards of Fortress Town to whatever would listen.

This night of all nights, two things happened in quick succession.

During her vigil, the wolf-syhee felt a sudden prickle, and a vast voice entered her mind, like the words of a hurricane forced through a gap in the window.

Only the greatest of Spirits of this world had such an effect. The sensation of one even deigning to consider noticing Fortress Town, or Alma, nearly threw her on her back, had the words not reached her.

Something is coming, but you must not fear it.

Before the priestess could even ask, she felt Malevolence. That creeping dread made the fur of her tail and ears stand straight, and her dawning horror made her rush out of the front steps.

The whole city seemed to have felt a rising sensation of evil and unease, and crowds of murmuring, uneasy citizens stood in the wet streets. Like birds, they had all unconsciously turned in the direction of their fear, and Alma saw that it also pointed her south, behind the walls of the Royal Fortress.

Above, the sky whorled and twisted, distorted in an immense spiritual flux. Seeing this towering vortex of energy, a thought sprung to Alma’s mind, chilling and unbidden.

The enemy … was within our ranks?

The very notion of it made her heart fall into her stomach. All this time, humanity had been desperately trying to keep threats secluded in that blasted forest, believing peace could literally be hidden behind their walls. Had even she become complacent?

Behind her thundered the sound of hooves, and the priestess turned to see a column of armored men approach on horseback. At the front rode a man in full plate, and denizens of the city were familiar with his squarish face and squashed nose, with the thick black muttonchops he used to cushion the helmet that framed his jawline.

Captain Talwen of Fortress Town’s garrison ordered a quick halt before looking down on Alma, a grimace carved into his stony features.

“Priestess, you’ve felt it too?” Talwen rumbled, voice like gravel. “I’m bringing every man I can over there right now, but every extra spiritualist who can come is welcome.”

Alma didn’t need convincing from anyone, least of all herself. All it took was a mild assurance that the horse wouldn’t mind an extra passenger for her to sit behind the large captain and have the train of soldiers gallop forth again.

The sense of disease in the air kept growing thicker as they approached the outskirts, and before long they found a stream of workers choosing to run for their lives down the muddy country paths the troops were in the middle of.

“Where did you come from?” Alma shouted at the crowd. Most of them barely heard the call, though one syhee came to a halt by the horse.

“The old ruins!” he said, before hurriedly jabbing at the distant outlines of old, abandoned walls. “There’s Malevolence festering down there like I haven’t felt since the war ended!”

Talwen didn’t even bother answering in kind, merely roaring back to the column, “Loosen your swords and get ready! We have to secure that place for when the spirit and musket companies catch up!”

The horses rushed ahead even harder than ever, enough to see the ruins, which in the dim light of the night looked like stone knives jutting out of the ground. How apropos.

Here, the Malevolence was thicker than ever infesting the air, and soldier there could see the reason why.

Figures were pouring out of the basement in a blind panic, dressed in an assortment of clothes with others toting black sacks, and even at her current distance, Alma could feel the Malevolence flaring up from the infestation in their bodies, summoned to be fired down the stairs buried in the ground.

“Run for your lives!”

“They’re coming!”

Those who were still clambering up the stairs, some nearly on all fours, were just a hair too late, as crimson arcs chased them down and cut straight through their limbs, tearing them to pieces.

Before they could even scream, the ground behind them rippled, before bursting outward in a shower of dirt and stone. The sudden blast was enough to give Talwen and his men pause, their breath eerily still as they watched a sickly purple pyre burst forth.

For an instant, everyone saw a nightmare – a vision of a monster from beyond the stars when it was still living, ruling the North as a foreign Spiritual energy so thick it could be seen and felt even by those without any aptitude for the arts.

Alma almost believed that the Menace from the Stars had somehow cheated destruction, had those flames not subsequently retreated into the bodies of some very familiar figures.

Bao, with a blank stare, slammed into the ground with purpose, and immediately became a whirlwind of swordwork, crimson blade chasing after the surviving Malevolence worshippers. Some were able fighters, armed with swords, pikes and axes, but with every strike, it seemed Bao, brimming with an even more innate yet strangely refined corruption, parried and slipped around each of them, slicing through arms and legs with a smoothness that no polished blade today would have offered when chopping through sinew and bone.

Alma’s eyes drifted upwards, and the woman she heard was called Trudy – known to her as a waifish, even foolish soul best known for crying out for alcohol – was almost mockingly tracing the air with a twisted staff that made the taint within it swirl at her command. With it, a resulting wind kicked up with enough force to throw more of her enemies skyward and down to slam into the stonework.

That was merely the softening blows for the last, an armored juggernaut that might have been Paul if it matched the pattern. But he was near unrecognizable and near impossible to make out, even with his intentional strides. His figure was nearly obscured by a wave of monsters: pitch-black skeletons whose eyes burned with violet light were in lock step, dragging stolen weapons and clumsily hurling rocks, but it was an army nonetheless.

It made Alma’s gorge rise, to see the dead in any form wrest their shattered bodies from the ground as playthings – something the Menace twisted with glee along with all sorts of monstrosities.

The chaos was so complete that both she and Talwen almost missed some of the enemy spiritualists trip and fall to the ground at the horse’s hooves.

“Please! I surrender! Just save us!” One of them screamed, and Talwen only needed to take a glance up to make a decision, as he shouted back to the troops.

“Company! Dismount! Perimeter! Spiritualists! Fire on my command!”

Despite the fear worming in their guts, training kept their bodies moving almost automatically, with the troops throwing themselves off the horses so as to array themselves in neat rows, one on their knees, and those standing above them so that two lines of spears could be stretched toward the horde, while behind, men and women who had been blessed with a connection to Spiritual energy began becoming conduits for what was still clean and usable in the air.

Alma stood right behind Talwen, letting the energy begin sieving through her as well, ready to move at her command, though she kept holding back, watching and waiting.

Bao, Trudy, and one who might be Paul. Three pairs of eyes stared back with ethereal light.

Was it just because of a single conversation on a prior night? Just because of that, she felt the need to humanize Bao and wish it wouldn’t be so? But that look in his eyes was unmistakable – like so many other victims, he would be an empty shell fuelled by inherited cruelty.

“Hold! Prepare for an advance, but wait for reinforcements!”

Despite the bloodshed, the trio did not move on them, and Alma waited and wondered.

And remembered.

Something is coming, but you must not fear it.

She felt the breath of the world push past her, and the three corrupted beings blinked.

The glow flickered. The pressure of the Malevolence began to recede into their bodies.

One by one, the army of skeletons lost the light in their eyes, and like puppets with cut strings, they collapsed, folding in on themselves as they hit the floor in a flurry of dust and immediate disintegration.

The armored being then shuddered, and an unexpectedly pathetic voice echoed within its skull, as a pair of clawed hands reached for it.

“What the hell is this crock pot? When the hell did I put on this stupid-”

Trudy was upon him, trying to pry the helmet off, while muttering, “Where are we? What happened? Weren’t we just underground?”

Bao’s body reflexively returned the blood-red sword to its talisman-drenched sheath and sent it on to disappear into the aether for future use, while grabbing Paul by the hips to try and pull him backwards out of his confines.

“I think we blacked out or something, and—Oh crap.”

“What do you mean, ‘oh crap’, what could possibly—Oh crap.”

Trudy’s turn of her head to match theirs was louder than any curse.

In the silence, the two sides stared at each other, and it was harder to tell who was more confused: the three who had been terrifying monsters just moments before, or the wall of soldiers arraying weapons and were suddenly at a loss for who to use them on.

“Oh,” Paul concluded.

“Uh…” Bao added.

Trudy raised her hands into the air placatingly, forgetting about the staff in her hands. “E-Everyone! I assure you, we may look very suspicious, but Malevolence is not involved-”

So she said, while her emotions caused the Malevolence inside her to spasm, and the sensation was enough to make the rows of spears flinch rather menacingly on their own under the momentary panic of the soldiers.

“Steady! Steady!” Talwen called out, trying to maintain order, though that seemed to make the three begin to shrink back.

“Uh… I think we, uh, caught you all at a bad time…” Paul began babbling, boots grinding against the stone as he slid back.

In the distance, a very eager adjutant rode in, nearly screaming.

“Sir! Musket squad has arrived! Ready to assemble and fire at your command!”

The trio’s faces went slack in disbelief. Then Paul growled.

“Ah, screw it. Guys, run for your lives! Everyone for themselves!”

Alma blinked. Talwen spluttered.

Everyone watched for a few awkward seconds as the three managed to bump into each other as they twisted around and began loudly clanking and running for their lives in the opposite direction of the troops, who had only minutes earlier been expected the revenge of the Menace itself.

As they began running for the treeline at the edge of a forest nearing night, Talwen shook his head and tried to rally the hardlocked battle lines.

“M-Men, assemble yourselves! F-Formation… Ready for pursuit! Musketeers! Out of the way!”

There was confusion near immediately. Men who were about to unhorse had to make room for men who were now trying to horse. Spears rattled and knocked into each other, and questions came hard and fast.

“Sir, to be taken alive or dead?”

“Sir, we have prisoners!”

“Confound it! These monsters have discovered pacifism!”

All the while, Alma stood in the mass and only wondered:

Why did she hear the laughter of Spirits on the wind?