Lineage

As Elisa wrenched the sword out from my chest cavity, I awaited the end with bated breath. Seconds ticked by, my curiosity growing as I still clung to life, wondering how quickly it would take for my body to shut down due to my lack of a heart.

“Rise, child,” Elisa said in a reverb tone, shuddering violently as she seemingly reigned in the darkness she’d unleashed before returning to “normal”, albeit with more of the veins coating her beautiful visage.

“I…” I said slowly, looking around the room. “I’m not dead?”

“Technically, yes, you are,” she said, sheathing her weapons and returning to her seat.

Technically? What the hell did she mean by…

No…

No.

No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No.

The curse! The curse that stopped anyone from dying… and that stopped anyone who was affected from ever leaving this shithole. I launched myself up to my feet, ignoring the pain in the exit wound on my back as I whirled around to face Elisa, a look of pure panic on my features.

“Is there anyway to reverse this?” I asked, looking her up and down to notice any change in expression. “Potion, magic, magical snorting substance? What the fuck can I do to fix this?”

“Why do you believe there’s a way to reverse the curse’s effects?” she asked with a cocked eyebrow, her tone of voice showing that she was fucking with me.

“Because there’s always a way to reverse these things,” I answered. “You just have to do the thing it says you can’t, whether through the help of a third party or by bending the rules. There’s always a way to fix these things.”

“Then enlighten me, young one,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Because I know of none."

“Right,” I sighed, scratching the side of my head in thought. “The devil is in the detail, and even though I don’t know the exact wording of the curse, I know enough to find its flaw. The curse stops those affected by it from ever leaving, but the curse only affects those people that have died in this city. Now I’m not sure if the death in the city brands you with any specific label the curse recognises, but there’s always the chance that if you’re not dead anymore, you’re not affected and thus can leave whenever you want.”

“So, all you have to do is come back to life,” she said, crossing her legs over. “A small feat if there ever was one.”

“I know you’re not being very helpful right now, but if you can think of anything that could help me, that’d be amazing,” I said with a hopeful smile.

“Why should I help you?” she asked with a cocked eyebrow. “My job is to test those who enter to find who may be worthy of defeating the monstrosity that lurks in the bowels of this city. you failed the test, and as a result, are worthless to me. I offer you no hand in help as it does not benefit me, nor does it help me complete my quest. I’ll open the door and allow you to join the rest of the undead, but that’s all I’ll do.”

I stared angrily at the Highmoore as she waved her hand, the door sliding open behind me as she returned to her resting position, whether sleeping or meditating, I couldn’t tell. The thought crossed me to slice her head off then and there, but something told me that whatever the creature she was talking about wasn’t something I wanted to face alone. Not to mention the fact that she held the key to the door to the lower levels, and not to the treasure room, so even if I did manage to kill her, something more powerful would definitely be in store for me.

I sheathed my sword and stormed out of the room, looking out across the dark city as I attempted to come to terms with my undeath, with the act I might not ever leave here, and with the fact that not one day earlier I had made a whole speech to myself about being the proud son of my race that wasn’t going to die achievement-less in some underground cave to some mythical ghost… and yet I’d done exactly that. I’d lasted less than a minute against some dark-powered elf chick before getting my ass handed to me on a silver platter.

This kind of thing would never happen to Luna. She would’ve found some way to beat Elisa. She could find a way to do anything at this point in her life. I rubbed my eyes in a tired manner, the old feeling of self-loathing returning in force now, my chest tightening and my stomach feeling sick as I began to remember how pathetic I was compared to anyone else I knew. Whether it was compared to Luna, compared to Twilight, or even compared to Zane, these were people that were leagues above me in everything they ever attempted that have been able to slay gods and monsters, while I’m sat here struggling with enemies that don’t even use projectile magic. I was the last son of an ancient race of global rulers, created by a sacred pact between angelic and demonic factions millennia ago to be the ultimate warriors, to protect all those on our plane of existence from any kind of invasive threat… and here I was, completely unable to use any of the power my race had and barely able to defend myself against any kind of skilled fighter. I was pathetic, worthless, and completely hopeless.

And it only took me getting killed to realise I wasn’t good at anything the others in my family were. Hell, I didn’t even hold the same level of education as they did. I was someone who barely made it past his Academic Designation Exams, while my grandmother and great aunt held the highest honours in most every field of expertise possible, my aunt held University Master's degrees ranging from Theoretical physics, master-level interpretation of seventy different languages, and even having completely revolutionised the use of rune magic by replacing tomes with symbols etched in them to cards with the runes drawn onto them and enchanted, to my mother who also held Master’s degrees in politics, business, and even managed to scrape by with a Passing Certification in Advanced Alchemical Formulas and a Distinguished Certification in Culinary Arts.

I’d attempted, after being pressured into it by my mother, to attempt an advanced education in any field of my choice, only to be turned away by everyone I asked about because I was too stupid for it, no matter what I’d picked. When I remember that, I usually remember how disappointed I’d been about being told I was too much of an idiot for anything beyond education designed for sixteen year olds, but now that I thought about it another way: What the hell did my parents think? To have their only son, a young man descended from such great minds, have every door slammed in his face and a dunce cap stapled to his scalp? How disappointed must my mother have been to have the child she’d poured seventeen years and hundreds of thousands of bits into educating had turned out to be such an irredeemable failure? To be the first member of the Equestrian royal family since Rivven the Mad King to not have a higher education? One of the few alicorn in history not to have full access to his magic by the time he’d finished purity? Standing alongside as such failures as Alcaron the Demented, an alicorn that suffered a terrible accident in his youth that left him permanently brain-damaged, or Mercine the Incompetent, an alicorn who had been so unbelievably stupid, she’d been usurped by her Uncle after she led a charge into a volcano after he’d told her it would grant her wings.

I was worthless, there was no denying that. I was an embarrassment to my family and my nation, and I felt bad for the rest of my family to have to associate themselves with me, especially Luna and Celestia, who would most likely have to deal with snide comments and remarks about their relative smearing the family name with his constant failures and lack of quality at anything in life. I shook my head, a pit of anxiety and depression boiling in my stomach as I slowly walked through the streets of the city, the other undead ignoring me all of a sudden, as if they sensed that they and I were of the same kin now, and they left me to sulk and whimper as I walked through the dark. I began to wonder what to tell Svea. How I was supposed to explain to her that I’d failed her and broken my promise to help her. The fact that she’d already given me her body as a token of affection, only for me to fall flat and fail before we’d even reached the halfway point.

I placed a hand to the spot where my heart used to beat and felt nothing. There was no thumping, no pulse, no nothing. After testing it for a minute, I realised I was only breathing because of instinct, and that there was no point to it as no blood was carrying the oxygen to my body as there was no pulse to carry it. I decided I liked breathing more than not, so I kept up the falsehood, hanging my head in shame as I walked back through the city, only coming to a stop when I realized I didn’t recognise where I was.

“Great…” I muttered with a cynical laugh. “The only thing I was ever remotely good at and I managed to fuck up being a tracker, too. Way to go, Rick.”

I looked around for several seconds, trying to get my bearings in the darkness only to realise I was completely lost. I lowered my head with a heavy sigh, knowing I could climb up onto the rooftop and find my way back from there, but what was the point? I’d failed to defeat Elisa, she was unwilling to fight me again, and I had no chance of beating her if I attacked her first. I was never going to get the key, never going to get the treasure, and I was never going to leave this place. Hell, I could ask Svea to send Luna a message to tell my family where I was so they could come visit me. They wouldn’t be able to do anything of course, but the sentiment would be nice. Having to spend the rest of my eternal life in some dark, dingy city, surrounded by fucking undead.

“There’s one!” a female voice yelled from somewhere.

“What?” I asked, looking up just in time to see an enormous shape leaping towards me. I attempted to dodge out of the way of the attack, only to have a massive beast paw swat me up in the air before it grabbed ahold of my ankle and threw me back into the ground, shattering several ribs, my knee caps, and my forearms due to the sheer force of it. I roared in agony and seized up in pain, my eyes not watering due to my body functions not watering, but I knew if I could cry, I’d be fucking sobbing right now. I rolled over as much as my shattered frame would allow me, trying desperately to see what was attacking me only to receive another brutal attack, this time a powerful kick to the face. Clawed, fuzzy paw-like feet cut deep into my face and shattered my facial bones, blood smearing all over the floor from the impact as I was sent skidding back, blind from both pain and the destruction of my eyes.

I waited for another attack, knowing that nothing was gonna kill me at this point and that I should just accept the beating as best as I could before I heard the same voice shriek in terror.

“Oh fuck, that’s not one of Eddie’s guys, is it?” it yelled in pure terror. “Oh hell, is he dead? Please don’t be dead? I’m sorry Mister, I didn’t want her to hit you that hard. Why’d you attack him like that, Mina?”

“You pointed him out!” a deeper, female voice snapped.

“Yeah, but I didn’t want you to fucking maul him to death!” the higher-pitch female said in a shaky tone, clearly distressed by what’d been done to me. “Have we got any of Sylvana’s candy on us?”

“I’m not wasting one of those on this brat,” she snarled.

“I didn’t fucking ask you what you wanted to do!” she screamed, the shakiness and breaking in her voice giving away the fact she was now crying. “Give me one of the candies, Mina!”

There was an angry snarl from the thing that had attacked me followed by the sound of gear rustling, a bag being opened, and something rattling around.

“Can you open your mouth?” she asked. “Please tell me you can open your mouth.”

I had no idea what she was trying to give me, but I figured whatever it was would be better than the searing pain I was experiencing right now. I opened my jaw as best I could, hearing a happy gasp from the girl as she placed something that tasted like a lemon drop candy in my mouth. It tasted rather sour but wasn’t unpleasant, and after being told to chew and swallow it if I could, I followed orders and soon felt something miraculous happen:

I began to heal from my injuries.

I felt my bones, flesh, and organs begin to reshape and knit back together, my sight returning slowly and my heart beginning to beat as whatever the girl had given me worked its magic. Once I was able to sit up and see what was going on, I was able to make out the two creatures in front of me. The one sitting closest to me, the one with the higher-pitched voice, was a fox-girl with long, brown hair and hazel eyes, her ears twitching and tail swishing excitedly behind her as she saw me recover. The second one, the creature that had left me damaged beyond movement mere seconds ago was a Jinko; a Tiger woman. She was like the rest of her species: tall, powerful, and terrifying. She had the usual features, too, like tiger paws and legs with thick, striped fur that appeared to be well-kept. Her human flesh was covered with plate armour down to just after her tiger parts formed, allowing her maximum defence as well as the crushing offensive power of her mighty animal limbs. Her ears twitched as she stared at me and her tail swished back and forth as she looked closer at my face, the complete lack of remorse or will to apologise in her eyes telling me that this cat was something to be afraid of. I turned my head back to the smaller fox girl as she smiled happily at me, her eyes still brimming with tears.

“I’m really sorry about my friend,” she said in a truly apologetic tone. “I didn’t know you weren’t a bad guy… I mean… I hope you’re not… you’re not a bad guy, are you?”

“No,” I said with a sigh, rubbing my neck before thumping my chest and coughing. “At least I don’t think so.” I stood up straight, the fox girl rising with me, before I looked up at the taller Jinko.

“You’re good with your claws,” I commented. “I’ll avoid annoying you while I’m in your vicinity.”

"Hm, this one seems smarter than ninety percent of his species already,” she said, crossing her paws over her chest and turning to her companion. “Can we get going now?”

“Just a minute,” she said in a quiet voice before turning back to me. “If you don’t mind me asking; what are you doing here?”

“I’m here for treasure,” I answered bluntly. “Though after the shit I’ve run into, I’ve kinda run up against a brick wall.”

“Really?” the fox girl asked. “Why’s that?”

“There’s an Elven warrior in the church over there,” I said pointing. “She’s guarding something I need, but she’s too strong for me to fight. She already killed me once, actually and won’t fight me again.”

“Let me guess,” the Jinko said. “You’re the one who already claimed the first two pieces o f the key, right?”

“Correct,” I nodded. “I’m assuming you’re going to try and murder me for them, right?”

“You’re rather good at this,” the Jinko nodded, cracking her neck.

“It’s not my first treasure hunt, honey,” I said, reaching for the hilt of my sword, only to be stopped by the fox girl.

“Both of you stop it,” she snapped angrily. “We’re not killing anyone for anything just yet. Did you say you’d given up on the treasure?”

“As much as I’d like to pack up and head home, there’s a dragoness counting on me to get it back,” I shrugged. “So, no. I’m not.”

“Wait… that dragoness must be the Narrowscale we’ve heard about,” the fox girl said to her Jinko companion.

“You mean the one that’s supposed to be the size of a small castle?” the Jinko asked.

“Yeah, that same one,” the fox girl nodded. I could tell just by looking at them that they were scared of Svea and her power, which meant I couldn’t let them know she was in the city and in her human form, lest they try something she couldn’t defend against. So I did what any good treasure hunter did: I bluffed my ass off.

“Yeah, and as well as being huge, she’s also an impatient bitch,” I shrugged. “She gave me a two day time limit to get the treasure before she came looking for it herself. And if she finds out that anybody tried to hurt her friend or take the treasure from her… I pity that poor fool.”

“Wait… you know her?” the fox girl asked.

“Indeed I do,” I nodded. “She’s paying the best she can for my help, too.”

“So then… there’s us, you, and Eddie’s gang,” the fox girl sighed, shaking her head. “We don’t have enough of the Phoena Drops left for this.”

“Speaking of those,” I asked. “What exactly are they?”

“There a magical candy with the power to heal injuries,” the fox girl explained. “They’re made with the blood of a phoenix, so they’re really rare and really expensive, but we have a friend who gives us free samples every now and again.”

“You wouldn’t be willing to share the recipe, would you?” I asked in a friendly manner.

“Sorry, we don’t know it,” she shrugged. “Sylvana never told us.”

“Right, I might pay her a visit sometime soon,” I nodded. “Anyway, now if you’ll be so kind as to let me be on my way, I’ll happily-”

“There they are!”

“Looks like those cunts found a new friend!”

“Mina, Eddie’s guys found us!” the fox girl said in a terrified tone. The Jinko moved in front of the trembling fox girl in a protective manner, bearing her fangs and narrowing her eyes in a threatening manner before turning to me.

“Am I right to assume those swords aren’t just for show?” she asked.

“Indeed you are, my fair cat-lady,” I said, drawing my steel sword and cracking my neck. “Let’s try to gain me some of my pride back, shall we?”

“When did you lose it?” she asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Honey,” I said with a scoff. “I think a better question is ‘When did I last have it?’”