Daring Do and the Shroud of the First King

The path into the heart of the Citadel was, to say the least, strange. The interior of the once-great fortress had collapsed in on itself in places; what had once been small, separated rooms became large halls full of broken planks and fallen wood pillars, held together in places by makeshift scaffolds. Dust noted on her way inward that there were no fireplaces of any sort for heating. Instead, what looked to be rusted iron grates in the floor of a majority of rooms led downward through the ground, all of these twisted stone shafts apparently tapping into some kind of volcanic vents beneath the fortress to provide warmth in the otherwise freezing-cold interior of the Citadel. Dust mused on the fact that this entire site may be sitting on top of an active volcano, remembering the fact that the fortress was hidden away in a chasm of some kind. Was the Citadel built on top of a volcano for some specific purpose other than to channel heat? Only time would tell, she reasoned.

'You… In there, now.' The mare who had been her escort barked, pointing a hoof at a huge pair of splintered wooden doors at the end of the corridor they now stood on. 'Do not… Make King wait.' She spoke again, straining to talk. Apparently, speech impediments and bodily deformity were the norm among these islanders. Dust shuddered to think of the genetic reasons for such problems as she pushed open the doors, and slowly shuffled inside.

The hall beyond was massive, the vaulted wooden roof held up by a mixture of ancient, carven pillars and new scaffolding constructed from rotting wooden planks and tree limbs. A sort of reverent hum could be heard in here, mixed with unnerving whispers and grunts from the rooms beyond, and the occasional rumbling of the volcanic vents which could be heard through the metal grids set about the hall. Metal sheets covered holes in the walls, and rusty nails covered almost every surface. Hanging all around were torn, darkly stained stained sacks made up of different materials stitched together crudely. Seeing a leg hanging out of a hole in one of them, Dust did not particularly want to open the others, or even look at them. At the back of the hall, on a pedestal of smashed stone and boulders, sat a throne made of wooden planks and what appeared to be driftwood – with bones interspersed throughout, the entire throne held together with rope and nails. On the throne sat a skeletal figure, rotten skin on its face and teeth protruding around its peeling lips. It wore an old sailor’s uniform; tattered, yellowed shirt and a huge overcoat covered with barnacles and dry, dead seaweed. A tattered, wide-brimmed sea captain’s hat sat upon its head, with what looked to be a crown of small bones constructed around the brim, and tied down with something dark and sinewy which Dust shuddered to observe. The figure did not move at all, its dusty eye sockets empty and dead.

'Hello?' Dust called out, moving toward the seated figure. 'Where is the ruler of this place? The King?' She looked all around the room, then back to the figure on the throne. She spotted the pale, blinded eyes of more emaciated workers spying down at her from holes in the walls. It looked as though these workers were moving about in small crawlspaces and tunnels built into the walls and ceilings of the place… Were they being confined to these small spaces all their lives? Forced to work endlessly like animals and trapped inside the infrastructure of the Citadel, never seeing the light of day?

Dust’s train of thought was broken by the sound of bones crackling and popping ahead of her. To her horror, the figure sitting on the throne was raising its head. Slowly and surely, the disgusting, wretched corpse lifted its rotten face to look upon her.

'I am the King of the Seabound, outsider.' It hissed, in a voice which sounded nothing louder than a whisper, but was still deafening as it reverberated around the hall. Dust moved back, horrified.

'But… How…?' She stuttered, as the corpse’s head weakly lowered back to its resting state.

'Do not question, outsider. Only know that I am the King of this place, and as such, you answer to me.' The corpse spoke again, its hushed tones mixed with a hint of heated rage. 'My children have brought you here to my throne, and now you will serve me.'

'If I refuse?' Dust asked, putting on an act of stubborn defiance. The corpse merely raised a rotting, pallid hoof and gestured. From two antechambers to his side, a guard of eight fully-armored warriors emerged, their armor based on that of the ancient Seabound mariners. They appeared in two groups of four, moving slowly in a militaristic march, with long ceremonial swords held in their teeth. They came to a halt at either side of the King, standing perfectly still beside him.

'If you do not follow my orders, I will have you executed.' A sickly grin wrinkled his ancient cheeks. 'Now, outsider. Your task is simple. You will aid my armies in their search for my Shroud of the First King of the Seabound – my great ancestor. The Shroud was lost to me long ago; taken by a storm which swept away my Barka, the flagship of my people, and left me stranded on this island. The Barka was taken by a great tempest, and the ship thrown all around by the four winds. I believe the Barka to survive somewhere on this island, whether wrecked against the bank of some inland river, fallen into a chasm, or torn to pieces in the bowels of the sea caves. But the Shroud lies in my cabin, wherever it is now.' Dust listened as the undead Seabound King sat remembering the ancient disaster. 'With the Shroud, I can again sail the seas as their rightful King, laying waste to all who stand in my way. I will take revenge for my years of imprisonment on this wretched isle, unable to die.'

'Why were you not able to die?' Dust asked meekly, confusion etched on her face.

'The curse of the Shroud, outsider.' The King hissed. 'Only when a King of the Seabound holds the Shroud in his possession may he choose to die… And he may only die by his own hand, at the chosen end of his reign, by giving the Shroud to his successor… And giving himself to the sea.'

'The tempest which wrecked the Barka on the Isle of Bones… Was it a normal storm?' Dust asked, beginning to piece together what may have happened. 'Or was this storm something supernatural?' The King of the Seabound merely shook his head, neck cracking loudly.

'This island itself is protected by its own ancient curse.' He explained, raising a hoof to point to something behind Dust. She turned, looking upon a huge tapestry of some kind, rotten now with age, which hung over the doorway of the great hall. It depicted an ancient goddess of some kind, holding a bowl in her hooves – a bowl filled with a dark liquid.

'Just like the statue I found earlier…' Dust muttered to herself.

'Statues and likenesses of this Goddess litter the Isle of Bones, outsider. She is the Goddess to whom the original inhabitants of this island prayed.' The King motioned all around him. 'We did not build the Citadel ourselves, outsider. It was built before our time, merely used and repaired by my children and I after we found ourselves lost on this Isle of damnation. We do not know the name of the Goddess, but we have come to realize that she protects this island against all intruders, seeking to destroy any who would desecrate her land.' The King again motioned, this time calling forth his Seabound guard. 'Now… My guard will lead you down into the mines. You will assume your new life serving us, and you will help me find my Shroud. Work hard, and you will be rewarded. Underachieve or resist, and you will meet your end on this Isle.' And with that, the guard of armored troops seized Dust, carrying her roughly out of the throne room and back out into the Citadel beyond.

The mines of the Citadel were located deep in its bowels, down narrow passages and winding, half-broken sections of walkways which led down through chasms in the solid rock. The caves were constantly warm, steam and hazy heat rising from the volcanic vents below the various layers of rock. Molten lava even bubbled in some exposed pits around the mines, covered over haphazardly by metal meshes and battered old bridges made of wooden planking and rusted metal supports. Walkways had been cut into the rock by years of slave labor, along which hundreds of pale, emaciated workers shuffled, pickaxes and shovels in their mouths. Observed only briefly before, Dust now saw the enslaved ponies from close range; the Unicorns’ horns had been sawed off, and the same had been done to the Pegasii’s wings. Their fur had peeled away from the bad conditions in the mines, and the skin beneath had become pallid and sweaty from the lack of natural light and the intense, unending volcanic heat. Dust regarded the unnaturally bad treatment of the slaves with disgust and horror as she was dragged onward into the dark, dank underworld to which she was now to become accustomed. On their way down, Dust was granted a moment’s audience in a public execution of one of the slaves; a scrawny filly, barely an adult, was bound in chains by three slave drivers. The three then dragged her over to one of the open volcanic vents, pulling the grate aside to reveal the glowing inferno below. The confused, dim-eyed filly was then kicked over the side into the fiery vent below. There was a loud screaming for a few seconds as a smoky haze rose from the vent, and then silence. The horrifying odor of roasting flesh began to spread as the metal grate was shoved back into place, and the terrified slaves were sent back to work with whips and beatings from their drivers.

'This your home now, outsider.' One of the Seabound spat, shoving Dust down a small gap in the rocks. She slid inside, falling into a small cavern within. The cave contained a battered pile of straw for a bed, and nothing else at all which might be considered any kind of furnishing besides a small, grate-covered volcanic vent in the corner which provided a dull glow to light the chamber. 'You collect pick from workstation up ahead soon. Work hard, or you go into the fire.' The Seabound roared, and the group disappeared off to return up to the Citadel above. Dust was left alone, in the stinking, smoky hole in the ground. She collapsed onto the bed of straw, the events of the past few hours performing their terrible dance in her head. She buried her head in the disgusting straw and rags, and cried and cried until sleep took her.