Chocolate Destiny ARC 2: A detour to Dorou

"Understood. How will I see you again, Brother Gareth? Where will God's Messenger go? I will rejoin you once I am ready to fight."

"I fear we may not meet again until the next life, Daliu. But if by God's grace I survive I will head for Lord Gilberm's castle." He turns and joins with several lay brothers on the tunnel back to the surface.

"Thank you for everything, brother Gareth. May Rhea watch over you."

With a tear in his eye, Daliu sadly bids farewell to Brother Gareth and goes to help evacuate the refugees.

Daliu becomes the subject of many stares and reverent whispers upon his arrival at the shelter, an earthen bunker with wooden reinforcement beams.
"There! There he is..."
"So young..."
"Red hair...like the fire of God's angels..."
Daliu gathers a group of two families.
"Bless you, child," says a grubby faced mother of two, who hands Daliu some bread and cheese.
"Daliu! Is that you?" Angelo Bastis approaches with uncertain steps. "Ya mind if I join this round? I'm still not fully used to my...impairment, although from what I hear the tunnels are dark enough to make it moot."

"Thank you, lady."

Daliu devours the bread and cheese, letting his hunger show. He looks around the shelter with pleading eyes.

"Does anyone have more food? I'm so hungry after that fight..."

"Of course, Angelo. I am glad to have you by my side. Every pair of ears will help. Sharpen your hearing, my new brother."

"I sure will."
Daliu receives several strips of salted beef jerky.

Daliu thanks the generous families and devours the salted beef jerky. He feels his strength return, to an extent.

Gathering the refugees, he begins down the long and hard path to safety.

Daliu's group passes through the now empty sick chamber and into the other tunnel. More rumbling occurs, giving some pause, but Daliu's determination is contagious.
The tunnel leads into a large, unlit cavern, unfrequented by humans. The group can barely see with their meager two torches. Stalactites and stalagmites abound, and the sound of dripping both near and far echoes, as well as every sound the group makes.
Unfortunately there appears to be three other tunnels branching off from this cavern and Daliu does not see any other group.
"It's so dark..."
"Mommy, where are we going?"
"Damn, which way do we go?"

"Calm, now."

Daliu feels for wind, hoping that it indicates an exit, and asks Angelo if he hears anything different in each of the three tunnels.

Unfortunately the strongest wind comes from the breathing of the people, giving Daliu no information about the air currents.
"I...I think I hear something from there...and there?" Angelo indicates the leftmost and the rightmost tunnel.

Daliu chooses the right path.

Daliu and his group follow the rightmost tunnel. It twists and turns, dipping up and down, the ceiling dropping so low the tallest men must bow their heads. The flickering torches reach less than ten feet into the dark beyond. Everyone is fearful of what may lie ahead, but another rumbling and faint echoes of yelling and screaming reach their ears, a reminder that there is no going back.
The tension partially subsides when the tunnel opens up into another cavern. The ground is now a smooth stone path, leading them right up to a yawning chasm that divides the cave in twain. A rickety bridge of fraying ropes and crooked planks hangs over the abyss. On the other end is the tunnel's continuation set in the middle of the rock wall, and some distance to the right of it Daliu spots something gleaming.

Daliu motions for his group to stop, and then moves forward to get a closer look at the gleaming object. He motions for Angelo to follow 3 paces away and perk up his ears.

The object appears to be a thin decorated shaft sticking straight up out of a square stone block, with a strange looking head that cannot be made out at this distance. Angelo reports faint sounds of people coming from both tunnels.

Daliu motions for his flock to silently hide to the side, so that anyone coming from the tunnel they just exited cannot immediately see them. Daliu and Angelo keep watch/listen for anyone coming through either tunnel.

A few minutes pass until Daliu hears footsteps through the back tunnel. A group of ten worried looking villagers enter the cavern. They look around, catch their breaths, and start crossing the bridge.

Daliu hushes them and approaches quickly, while showing his Tricorv.

"Stop, brothers and sisters. There may be danger ahead. Come with us back to the tunnel for a moment, until we are sure the way ahead is safe."

The villagers are confused.
"What? But there's danger behind!"
"You want us to just wait here?"

Sensing that something is very, very wrong. Daliu instructs the villagers to all cross the bridge, taking Angelo with them. Better to face an unknown, than a definite evil. He holds one back to question.

"What danger is right behind? Who is pursuing you?"

Angelo's hands are guided to the ropes, and he leads the line of villagers across.
"I- I don't know," the woman stammers, "Someone was trying to break down the shelter gate. We didn't stay long enough to find out who it was."
"Ahh!" A shriek comes from the rope bridge, where a child's foot has slipped through a gap between planks. Her parents squat down to wrest her back up, and the whole structure begins to sway precariously over the depths. Angelo is three-quarters of the way across when he suddenly freezes for a moment. "It's...it's gonna break! Get off the bridge! GET OFF THE BRIDGE!"

He quickly dashes to the other side along with the man immediately behind. A few villagers closer to the near side step back onto stable footing, but the ones in the middle are confused and in their moment of indecision the frayed ropes snap.
"OH MY GOD!" "NOOOOOOooooooooooooo...."
Part of the bridge falls into the chasm, along with several screaming villagers. Still attached to the posts on Daliu's side, the larger half swings down and hits the side. Six former residents of Dorou cling to the ropes and planks for dear life, including the family that got stuck earlier.

Thump-thump. Tragedy. Innocent lives lost.

"No...NO!"

Daliu is unable to make it in time, as he watches the bridge slowly collapse.

"Help me pull them up!" Daliu says to the people on the near side.

The rescue effort commences, but as the bridge-turned-ladder is only wide enough for one to climb up safely at a time, having all the villagers participate would hinder it more than help.

The member 'Corenat Rovarnus' has done the following action : Dice Roll\'d

'normal' :

"Save my baby first!" Only the child and her mother are pulled up before the rest of the bridge breaks away.
Daliu and company can only watch helplessly as the others fall into darkness.

Daliu grieves openly. But they must press on. He looks around the cavern for any alternative path across the chasm.

"Tell me more about the pursuers. Our lives may depend on it."

"I already told you, I don't know!"
Daliu sees no alternative crossing, but he does see thin horizontal rectangles carved into the cliff face, stacked one atop the other.

"Daliu!" Angelo cries. "What's going on? What can we do?"

"Calm, everyone! Angelo, the bridge has broken, and villagers have fallen. I will go into the chasm to tend to them, but first you must investigate your side of the chasm. Bring someone with you, first to inspect the glittering object, and then the rest of the chasm. Send the quietest adult to scout into the tunnel ahead, and bid them come back quickly"

"Got it!" Angelo responds, but less than a minute later speaks up again. "But...wait! There's only one other man who made it to the other side with me."

Daliu cranes his neck to see the object, while patting the survivors on his side to comfort them. "Let's look at this object first. Describe it to me."

"Where is it?" Angelo is guided by the other man over to the object, feeling it with his hands. "It's...its the shaft of a long scepter...with an ivory Tricorv on top."

Daliu's eyes widen. This may be an object of importance to the faith.

"Hold onto that Angelo. I'm going down for the villagers. Keep watch and call out if anything happens."

Daliu descends into the chasm.

Daliu peers over the cliff and sees a similar stack of rectangles on his side directly opposite the other ones. He carefully lowers his feet and inserts them into the carvings, which apparently go quite deep into the stone. He descends to the eighth "rung", but there are no more after that, and though he cannot see the bottom or the villagers it seems like it is still a long way down.

Daliu gulps, and his limbs recall the weariness that lurks just beneath his consciousness. He recalls the pain of being crushed by the Acid Spitter, and being pierced by wooden shards.

But he does not hesitate. This was his only path.

"Hold on, I'll be back soon," he calls to the people above. He then lets go and drops into the darkness.

Daliu drops like a stone. The villagers frantically shout as they realize what has happened.
"Stop! Get back up here!"
"NO! What are you doing?!?"
"What?! What did he do?" Angelo yells.
"He jumped down, the fool boy...boy....boy..."
Air whooshes past his ears, and the voices fade into echoes. Daliu can see nothing but darkness, all encompassing. A minute passes, with nothing but the howling of the wind, when finally-
SPLAT.
Daliu's free fall is ended abruptly by a hard bottom. The extreme velocity at which the impact occurs shatters his skull, his ribcage, all of his bones, and his body splatters into countless gorey bits and pieces over the chasm floor.

Epilogue


Route 1: AYIME



Daliu's flesh was left alone in the chasm. Rats came to feast upon him, and the rotting corpses of his flock. The rats ate and grew fat, and made their nests. Dorou's peasants were gnawed to the bone, and Daliu's corpse was devoured almost completely. The rats of the Chasm made their new home among these grinning skeletons.

But one day, Daliu's flesh began to move.

The rats that had eaten of his meat and marrow grew sick. Their fat was stripped, and their bodies turned to husks, as the young boy's flesh reformed in the center of the chasm. So too was their den disturbed. Droppings, dried blood, and all manner of bodily discharge, crawled across the ground to join the lump of meat, which coated itself over Daliu's broken skeleton. The jumble of bones was no longer bound to a boy's shape, and instead formed a cage to hold the creature's soft core, which laid in slumber.

Those rats that confronted the creature found their teeth stuck in its flesh. They were slowly consumed, and the creature enjoyed them. It extended spongy tendrils, which snared more for its hunger. The frightened vermin, unable to fight or avoid this stranger predator, abandoned their den.

As the chasm emptied of the living, the creature turned to the dead for sustenance. The grinning remains of Daliu's flock soon joined him in his rebirth. Their bones were digested, and secreted as a hard shell around the lump of flesh, forming an egg, with Daliu's mind at its core. With nothing else to consume, the creature sat in self-repair, knitting bone and tissue, so that it might one day emerge from its shell fully formed. And so it slept.

And so it slept.

---

Ten years later, it awakened in the darkness, and it
raged.

It recalled, it remembered. It screamed, it howled, it seethed. And it suffered. The chasm rumbled from its suffering.

Lives were lost.
Happiness was lost.
Safety was lost.
Homes were lost.
Justice was lost.
JUSTICE WAS LONG LOST.

Justice had been lost ten years ago. All the evils of the world had been wrought upon the land.

The attack on Dorou.
The villagers in the shack.
Lee Gray refusing to admit his sins.
The death of the cloaked-man.
Henry's fate.
Lee Gray refusing to admit his sins.
The death of the Cook, Ali and Noir.
Lee Gray refusing to admit his sins.
The plague of Enarou.
Lee Gray refusing to admit his sins.
The fire of Enarou. His parents' deaths.
LEE GRAY BURNING, MURDERING, SINNING.

"Why..." he mutters, his dead eyes downcast. "Why are they all dead and I'm alive..."

This is not right! This should not happen! How can the world be like this?! How can he not correct it?!!!!

He must correct it, for he is Justice. He is winged, clawed, toothed like Justice. He is scaled, and polished brilliant red like Justice. He roars, like Justice.

THIS WORLD CANNOT BE.


Snap. Something breaks inside Daliu's mind.



The world changes.

The darkness that has enveloped him for ten years is chased away by a scarlet horizon. Flames burn this town. They lick the rooftops, devour the homes, and burn its people to ash. They are already ash. They have long been ash.

Daliu looks down at his hands. Hands?

They are whole, they are formed, they are powerful. He is powerful. He is justice. His hands grasp twin swords. They are the hands of Justice itself, ripping evil apart with a cold intensity.

Daliu runs through his hometown, Enarou. He runs its familiar bends, as it burns to the ground. He runs on the path to Justice, in pursuit of Evil.

And he finds it. Lee Gray crouches behind a wagon, searching near and far for escape. But there is only fire. Lee Gray is old now. His face has changed, but it still holds that familiar malice. Lee gathers up his silk pajamas as Daliu approaches. Lee's mouth hangs open in confusion. He has just awoken, he is not ready for Justice. But Justice has been dreaming for far too long.

"Hold on, good sir. I'm sure there must be a mistake here," Lee says.

Daliu kicks the wagon aside, which splinters into flaming chunks of wood.

Lee, who has grown cautious in his old age, raises the hidden pistol he keeps on his person. It falls to the ground, clasped tightly in what used to be Lee Gray's hand. Pain and fear wrack Lee Gray's face.

"What are you afraid of?" Daliu asks.

Lee backpedals, clutching the stump on his arm. He turns and runs, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

"Nothing. I fear nothing," Lee replies, gasping for breath. "Nothing. I am free. You must stop, kind stranger, and show me the way out. Together, we can surely escape this hellhole, can we not? Let us be free together."

Daliu hurls his sword at Lee Gray, piercing flesh and bone. He thunders towards Evil, and beheads it. The inferno surrounds them from all directions. Daliu throws Lee Gray's corpse into the flames, and watches it burn to ash. Now, Evil is truly vanquished, for Fire is the Final Death.

[Reality established: Lee Gray cannot live more than 10 years after Daliu's fall down the chasm]

The flames come to Daliu, and he embraces them.

The darkness returns.

Daliu lies in his shell. The Chasm is empty, as it has been for ten years. 'I have done it. The root of all Evil has been vanquished. Justice has been realized. This wrong world has been righted. This world...may finally be worth seeing now.'

Daliu's shell cracks. His wings emerge. He pushes and scrabbles with his claws until the shell falls to pieces. There is pain. Daliu is a deep, dark red. His winged form is slick with blood. There is nothing to stop the bleeding. His limbs are without scales, his claws are without talons. As he looks upon the Chasm for the first time with his new eyes, he feels despair. The Chasm is too high. He is so weak, and the pain is relentless. The air scorches his skinless body.

Daliu roars.

'Please, God. Bring the fire. I cannot live on like this. Bring the end for me.' But the fire does not come. Daliu lies on the ground, unable to rise.

The pain consumes him.

HOW IS THERE SUCH SUFFERING? THE EVIL IS DEAD. IT IS GONE. I KILLED IT. HOW CAN THERE BE MORE?

Daliu realizes. He howls in joy at his understanding. The vestiges of Evil have not disappeared from this earth. He must eliminate them all.

Snap.
[Eternal Enarou activated]

The scarlet horizon returns. The flaming town continues to burn. Evil surrounds him. They fill the streets. Men, women, and even children. Acid Spitters streak across the sky in vain, unable to escape this cage.

Daliu grasps his twin swords. Daliu runs through his hometown, Enarou. He runs its familiar bends, as it burns to the ground. He runs on the path to Justice, in pursuit of Evil. And he finds it.

End Route 1