"That’s right," Bobby said, clapping his hands together. He held a small picnic basket up to illustrate the point. "There’s a cake here, just for you."
He pulled out a little plate, and a fork, and cut Oliver a piece of white chocolate cake, with strawberries on top. "The finest food, for such a hard worker."
Oliver accepted the plate, and reached for the fork. He cut himself off a small mouthful with it, and raised it to his lips, before freezing, and hurtling the entire thing to the floor, plate and all.
His vision blurred, the forest disappeared for just a second, and ca a world of red. A small throbbing red mass lay where the cake had once been. Then, the forest flashed back to life, and the Gnos looked hurt.
"What did you do that for!?" Bobby cried, racing to pick up the pieces of plate, with tears in his eyes. "D’ya how important that plate is? It’s hundreds of years old!"
"No. Why did you do that? Why would you make attempt to eat that?" Oliver said, holding a sword towards them.
"Eat what?" Henry said.
"You’re not Gnos." Oliver said emphatically.
The world blurred again, and the forest vanished entirely this ti, and the images of the Gnos distorted into sothing else. They weren’t much bigger than what they were. They were around the size of small children. White skull peaked out from behind decaying flesh. One, what might have been a girl, from the long hair that still clung to one side of the skull, where the scalp hadn’t quite faded. The other might have been a boy. Both still sported the ragged clothes they had worn in life, though they had decayed just as much as their skin. With blue flas in their eyes, and daggers in their hands, they were the most terrifying Corpse Soldiers that Oliver had ever seen.
"Evil," the girl condemned him as. "Evil, evil. Give us your heart, Mister."
"Give it to us," the boy said – confirming that he really was a boy when he spoke. Though how they spoke, with no vocal cords in their rotten necks to do so, it was difficult to tell. "Give us your flesh, your bones."
Oliver levelled his sword at them, unsure. The girl rushed at him, with all the speed of Gar, and all his strength, she leapt, and her knife ca looking for Oliver’s heart. When she moved, and her clothes shifted, he could see the gaping hole there, in her own chest, where her own heart had once been. It took his best speed to see the blow turned aside, just in ti for the boy to co racing towards him, his own dagger targeting Oliver’s stomach.
CLANG!
Barely, again, did he parry. "Please, Mister, please, just let us have your heart," the girl said. "We’d be ever so happy if you did."
Oliver narrowed his eyes in disgust. The unsureness in his sword was gone just as quickly as it had arrived. White anger replaced it. He was not fooled by their words, for he saw beyond them. There was no saving these two, no matter what he offered them. What irked him the most was the knowledge that they were still being used by their torntors, even in death. The curse of their magic held them in place.
CLANG! CLANG!
They ca at him fast, with all the viciousness of goblins. One Gar alone was enough to handle, two would be a near-impossible feat. Naturally, Oliver thought not of that. He found no surprise in himself, when his sword so easily, so impossibly, managed to almost vanish, and slip through the guard of the girl, removing her hand from her wrist. He did it as if it was the natural, expected thing.
And when the boy ca for him from his blind spot, any would have thought Oliver had already expected him there, from the swiftness with which he turned around, slashing perfectly, just above the outstretched dagger, nicking the boy’s head, reducing Oliver’s foes to one.
The girl hissed. "That wasn’t very nice, Mister."
Oliver said nothing. He simply waited, as the girl snatched up her dragged dagger with other other hand, and ca racing towards him again. He waited, allowing her the chance to strike for his heart for the longest ti. The utmost calm, and then with the most frightening, most controlled speed, without the slightest hint of true aggression, he severed her head.
It might have been re consolation for what he had needed to do, but Oliver could have sworn he heard relief in the gasp that the girl made, as her soul was finally and permanetly seperated from the puppet that had been made of her body.
The corridors brought him circling, and circling, until at last, he reached a door far larger than any he had co across before, and of a material that he did not believe he had ever encountered. Sothing about it bespoke finality. If this were not the last room – if this were not the source of all the corruption down here, then Oliver would have found himself surprised.
The door felt and looked almost glassy, though he had never seen glass worked like this. It was a deep, dark purpled, and shaped to form symbols and patterns. Thick enough that he could not see beyond it, and sturdy enough that it could bear black iron ringlets for handle. A large spiral decorated the centre of the door.
"..." Oliver observed that symbol. The sa thing that the dragon had put on his crown, the sa thing that had been blasted through to reveal that hole in the wall. Oliver knew not what it ant, but he was beginning to wonder if it was not, after all, an altogether evil thing.
He pulled on the door, delaying no further. It ca open with an immaculate, deceptive ease, as if it were entirely weightless.
Inside, finally, Oliver was free of that haunting and dark black stone brick work and those white and black tiles that had prevailed all the way through. Here, it was an open and natural cavern. It rose up high towards the ceiling, and expanded large enough that even the dragon’s chamber he had encountered paled in size to it.
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