Dark Archaeology

Arthur Morgan

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Spirits of Vengeance
Arthur came to flat on his back, icy wetness seeping through his clothes and chilling him to the bone.

At first, he reckoned that he’d been thrown from his horse somewhere in Bayou Nwa; the ground was certainly marshy enough and, when he heaved himself up from the ground into a sitting position, his hands slid in the muddy silt like they would in the deepest parts of the swamp. Except, when he got to looking around, he didn’t see hide nor hair of whatever horse he might’ve been riding...

All around him and stretching as far as the eye could see weren’t nothing but fog and trees. He could spy a few shrub-like patches of mangroves here and there, the ground covered in low-level pools of stagnant green water ringed by tangles of brush. A greater water source, a river or something similar, was likely nearby. Arthur happened to be sitting on a rare elevated patch of dirt, and from that spot he could hear as the intermingling sounds of croaking frogs and chirping crickets created a throaty, repetitious chorus to fill the night air.

The man took stock of himself. His clothes, though mud-stained, looked the same as ever. His hair felt a bit longer than he was used to, and his face prickled when he smoothed his fingers over it— could use a shave. He had his gun, lasso, and satchel. Didn’t seem to be injured, though his arms and hands were littered with old nicks and scars.

Sitting on the ground between his feet was a hat. His hat.

Arthur stared at the hat like it was a rattlesnake poised to strike. The black material seemed a bit worn, but that wasn’t what itched at him about it. It was simply the hat being there that was the problem, the puzzle his foggy head needed to put together—craved it as desperately as dry ground thirsted for water, in fact—and the realization made him shaky all over. Now that was an odd feeling, being jumpy about a damn hat, but one he found he couldn’t shake.

Transfixed, Arthur picked the hat up and turned it in his hands, looking it over from various angles. He knew he was forgetting something, but could not for the life of him think of what it could be. It was like following a trail of rabbit tracks through the woods only to lose them in the brush, right as it seemed he’d been getting close. He knew the rabbit was there, even knew which direction it might’ve been going, but it was just… gone, hidden by an impassable wall he couldn’t seem to get around.

Then, it struck him. Hadn’t he given John this hat?

To Arthur, the humid swamp air suddenly felt frigid. His heart beat viciously inside his chest, tearing across his ribs like it was trying to escape.

What in the hell was he doing in... Lemoyne, when he remembered (as if through a curtain of mist, the memories coming to him in short bursts of thought) being someplace wholly different?

He could remember... names, and faces, and growing steadily sicker and more afraid. He remembered the simple times and the hard ones. Punching that rat Micah for one, that had been simple in how good it felt. Lying crumpled on the hard stone of that dark mountainside, bruised and bloody with Dutch standing over him, was less so.

What he distinctly remembered, though, was turning to look over the hilly forests northwest of Annesburg, the feeling in his fingers and toes slowly seeping out of him, the fog of death building in his throat and a numbness unlike anything he’d ever felt settling in his bones, heavy like a blanket of snow falling over him to leave his body in the dark and cold. Watching as the sun slowly rose over the trees and petals of light cast the world in gold, memories passing in a slow ramble behind his eyelids.

Arthur groaned quietly, dragging a hand roughly down the side of his face. Faces came before him as he closed his eyes. Faces he’d seen so many times in the dead of night, in the light of a campfire, in the barren stark light of the Heartlands, from every angle and with every possible expression; the consequences of close-living with specific people all your life. The memories crowded together, sure. But the feelings of belonging, of comfort still remained.

But all of it seemed so distant to him, like he’d gone on living and it was all a hundred years in the past. Some things, though, stood out to him as especially pivotal in all this, and if he were a traditionally educated man, Arthur might even consider them as representative of a kind of monomyth— a hero’s journey between the known and the unknown, with his death being the symbolic threshold. Not being an educated man, but an exceptionally philosophical one, Arthur still recognized the transgression he was committing against nature by simply being alive.

Standing up turned out not to be as much of a hardship as it had become in recent months, his breath coming easily and unburdened by the near-constant pain and exhaustion that’d been weighing him down. There was sour sweat beading on his face, not from a fever, just the swampy air. It was like he’d been miraculously cured… though Arthur felt that was too wishful of a notion to consider for long.

The air flowing freely into his grateful lungs was earthy and strong, like the prairie after a good hard rain, and towering over him were enormous trees absolutely dripping with moss. The whole land appeared untouched by axes and the footpaths of man alike. Arthur had to stand a moment just to take it all in, breathing in the unfamiliar sights and sounds working together to create a mighty powerful atmosphere of unease and strangeness.

After this moment of silent contemplation, the man replaced his hat on his head and checked over the only gun he seemed to have left. Satisfied that it was in good condition and loaded, he holstered the pistol a bit reluctantly. Being a former dead man made him rather leery of his surroundings—reasonably so, Arthur thought. He weren’t taking the chance of being caught with only a skinning knife to fend off wild animals or unfriendly strangers.

Arthur cast one last grim stare around, blue eyes laced with suspicion as they scanned the marshy area for signs of life. Only the trunks of trees stared back at him through the mist, the night voices of animals reverberating around them in shapeless, howling echoes. When nothing ferocious leapt out from the dark to harass him, he was almost disappointed.

“Best be getting on,” Arthur said to the silent trees, and felt deeply how very alone he was.

And so began yet another long, arduous trek through the woods.
 

Arthur Morgan

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Spirits of Vengeance
It wasn’t long before Arthur stumbled across something interesting, if you could call it that. Just some long, tall slabs of stone partway sunk into the thick mud of the swamp, overgrown with a dense lattice of vines and leaves. The shadow of the jungle canopy high above cast over the gray rock, shifting occasionally so that the silhouettes of leaves were plainly visible.

That in and of itself wasn’t too remarkable, but the way the stones were positioned seemed… deliberate. Like some fella had placed them just the right distance apart to form a kind of path to walk through. Stooping down to get a closer look, Arthur could see that the path was worn and probably wasn’t walked much, lined with the occasional square stepping stone. He wasn’t all too certain about where that path might lead, considering that wherever it went was swathed in green plant life and the shade cast by the stones, but he was intrigued nonetheless.

Arthur stood considering the stone monument for a good minute before reaching into his satchel. The soft brown leather of his journal’s spine fit comfortably into the palm of his hand, the pages shifting easily between his fingers as he splayed it open across his hand. A good thing, too— he’d been concerned that the humid weather might damage the pages, or that the mud he’d been lying in may’ve slipped inside.

With a blank page open before him and pencil in hand, Arthur began to sketch a rough outline of the peculiar arrangement of stones, shifting the dark lead back and forth to get the shading just right. It took a few minutes to get the drawing done to his satisfaction, even though the arrangement of rock he was looking at weren’t too impressive in and of itself; it just interested him, was all.

As an afterthought, he added a brief note, resolving to put more of his thoughts to paper later:

249

Image Text: "Wound up in a swamp, by unnatural means I do not yet understand. Came across some kind of monument made of stone, might be worth looking around more.
"

Wiping the sweat from his face for what seemed to be the hundredth time, Arthur returned the journal to its place in his satchel. Adjusting the strap across his chest, the man took an aborted step forward, pausing with the edge of his boot’s heel just barely scraping against the path leading between the sunken walls. He reached with one hand to feel out where his pistol was tucked into its holster and, finding it secure, stepped down onto the shaded path.

The air felt colder, down there. The humidity was still strong, but it was dampened by the stone bracketing him in. As he moved cautiously through the gloom, one hand feeling along a plant-littered wall, Arthur tried not to think about how he was walking along like a bull through a narrow chute at the stockyard, unaware of his destination and mighty restless about the fact.

It seemed he’d been stumbling down that path for quite some time before he noticed that the tops of the stone walls had tapered off, and found himself stepping out into an open glade. Only a few extraordinarily old trees grew here, their sprawling roots covered by a mess of thicket and undergrowth that seemed about as tall as he was. Most peculiar of all, though, were the small buildings and crumbling piles of stone distributed evenly around the wide clearing, their straight-edged forms partly hidden by the thick foliage.

Arthur trudged a few paces forward, scanning the area and listening for anything unusual. He didn’t hear anything… and then in a short time realized that he didn’t hear anything. Even the frogs had gone quiet, the lack of evening song leaving an unsettling hush behind.

On high alert, Arthur began to pick his way through the maze-like thicket, branches and twigs catching on his clothes even as he tried to move as quietly as possible. Dead leaf litter slid under his boots, the occasional damp slurping of mud marking his footsteps.

Brushing the branches of a large shrub out of his face as he came nearer to one of the buildings, the man considered the weathered stone—for it was stone, the same sturdy gray rock as he’d encountered before—edifice’s walls, namely the carvings chiselled in ornate patterns across them.

Arthur walked around the small structure with a slow and ponderous gait, tracing a few of the depressed lines with his fingers. The carvings were elaborate despite their apparent age, depicting large lizard-like creatures and tiny men in swirling tendril shapes. Strange markings, probably some form of language he supposed, formed panels beside the peculiar figures. There were also a fair amount of skulls decorating the small structure. So many skulls.

He was abruptly reminded of the tiny, cramped streets of Saint Denis and the cemetery it housed, with stately above-ground tombs set aside for rich folks. This building… and the others around, which he could just barely glimpse through the pervasive dark… were probably mausoleums, then. Was he standing in a graveyard?

An uneasy feeling settled in Arthur’s gut. Normally, he wouldn’t be too bothered by a place like this, but now, after he’d been convinced he was sure to die…

Well, it just weren’t right.

Shrugging off his discomfort with a literal shrug of his shoulders, Arthur again turned to look at the carvings. He’d just begun to consider attempting to copy the strange lizards-fighting-man scene down when a sudden commotion startled him, the sound coming from somewhere toward the middle of the marshy glade.

Automatically shifting to take cover against the side of the mausoleum, Arthur positioned himself so that his shoulder was tucked against the wall and he could crane his neck to peer around the building’s edge, ready to pull a weapon if need be. He wasn’t at all confident about what he’d see, but so long as it wasn’t a giant man-eating lizard like the carvings depicted, the man figured he’d probably be able to put up a good fight.

The thick mist that seemed to pervade every inch of this place obscured his view, but Arthur could just barely glimpse the slight form of a person tearing out from seemingly nowhere like a bat out of hell, only to hurl themselves to the ground behind a fallen log about forty yards away from where he was standing. There they stayed, the extremely faint outlines of limbs huddled together visible. Occasionally, they seemed to chance a peek over the top of the log, only in anticipation of what, Arthur did not rightly know.

It was as he was squinting at this unknown person that something else materialized from the curtain of wavering fog, so Arthur didn’t notice it right then. Only when he raised his eyes a bit did he see the unnatural, spectral shape that had no place walking the earth, its bent head searching the area with an eerie focus.

He might’ve thought it seemed almost like a person, were it not for the extreme emaciation. What meager light drifted through the thick forest canopy above illuminated the angular shape of the figure’s skeletal hips, arms, and ribcage, at last settling to glint off the massive sword clutched in its hands.

Now, he'd seen a lot of strange things in his day, but never anything quite like this. Yet despite the powerful dread that took hold of his heart, Arthur’s gaze slid to the figure cowering behind the log and held there for a moment. If he were to turn and walk away right now, would they manage to survive this? Would he happen to come across another living person after, or continue wandering alone in perpetuity?

Arthur sighed, drawing his pistol. Him and his bleeding heart.
 

Arthur Morgan

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To some, exploring the untamed surface of Kraw was a death wish. The world was a green hell, the wild jungle home to innumerable fallen temples and ruins; remnants of civilization that could not withstand the world’s bloodthirsty nature. Not many were willing to try their hand at rebuilding what had been lost, fearful of the world’s tendency to swallow entire settlements, strangling the life out of them with aggressive flora. Not to mention the sheer number of carnivores prowling in the shade of the trees, even the smallest beasts driven by the need to brutalize and consume their fellow creature...

But to others, Kraw represented something elusive, something coveted: an opportunity. Whether it was adventure, danger, treasure, or a mixture of all three, the possibility of discovering something which no other living human had laid eyes on before—and live to tell about it, besides—was too powerful to resist.

Standing in the middle of a glade littered with the graves of ancient settlers, Dell Martin was one such person looking for opportunity. Clad in a torn, dirt-stained tee that seemed scarcely able to hang from their shoulders like a ratty old curtain, it was no wonder that the reddish-brown skin of their arms was littered with cuts and scratches. A worn leather vest was their only form of protection from the elements, their pants shredded at the knees but paired with a set of sturdy combat boots.

Their burning torch held aloft, Dell peered down at the rectangular opening they’d found in the ground. Water spilled into the bowels of what appeared to be the entrance to a crypt, the crumbling remnants of a stone staircase leading down below the muddy surface of the swamp.

Dell took a deep breath before starting down the stairs. Gods, they really hoped there weren’t any freakishly large bugs in here...

The crypt turned out to be a smallish room covered in broken pottery, bat droppings, and what appeared to be bones similar in scale to Dell’s own limbs, even if some of the skulls they saw littered across the floor appeared bizarrely elongated around the cranium area. Their torch illuminated at least a dozen wooden coffins strewn about in flickering golden-orange light, the boxes destroyed and dismantled by time itself.

Dell nudged their boot against a pile of shattered clay that seemed about to disintegrate into dust, the sound causing a few rats to shriek and scurry across the floor to take refuge inside the cracked walls. A faint stench of decay seemed to permeate the place— not like that of rotting meat, no, but a cold, bone-deep atmosphere that signalled that this was a place of death.

Having exhausted the floor and scalloped shelves of the crypt, Dell turned to a few of the coffins… and promptly froze, hesitant to even consider it. But… if they were lucky, they might find ancient necklaces forged in rare metals, maybe family rings passed down for generations— things that the University of Abraxas would utilize for archaeological study, but in all likelihood insist on returning after discovering the artifacts’ origins.

Dell wasn’t exactly planning to dedicate their hard work to the university, however. It was shameful to admit it, but there was a reason they were still unaccompanied after passing through the enclosed settlement’s walls, and that reason was money. Dell hadn’t had the funds to carry out their own independent study, and they weren’t interested in being someone’s research monkey until that could happen. Maybe if they found something worthwhile, though, they could sell it off-world, save up enough money to hire their own research team and protection, buy their own tools...

It was this mission that drove them to haul the wooden caskets out from their internment niches, that gave them the stomach to crank the lids open and rifle through old bones turned to dust and fine clothes to rags. They wrinkled their nose at the unsavory work, but… needs must when the devil drives.

After two coffins, Dell started to think that maybe this whole operation was a bust. What the hell were they thinking, coming out here and digging through a bunch of dead people’s stuff in the hopes of turning a quick buck? They should just leave, join some stuffy archaeologist’s crew after all. This wasn’t right… but, well… maybe they could open just one more.

"Just one more” revealed an otherwise unremarkable corpse, were it not for the shiny bits set into the soles of the body's burial slippers. The soft material was edged with threaded sinew, bluish colored but visibly greyed by time. What caught Dell’s eye, however, were the beads in the shape of rhombs embedded in the heel, arch, and ball of the dead person’s foot, respectively, and set into each of these were three delicate crystals— polished orange citrine, by the look of it.

With how pristine and delicate the slippers were, it was clear they were intended solely for burial— a shame that the vibrancy of the colors was lost to time. The dusty footwear didn’t appear to be much good for walking, Dell reasoned, but an archaeological find like this could sell for quite a bit of dough if they could find the right buyer.

Dell tugged the wrinkled and worn leather slippers off the remains of the skeletal feet, the ancient toes crumbling to dust from the force. They stared for a moment at the ashen pile, a few bits of extremely human-looking bone sticking out.

Oh, well. They wouldn’t be needing these anyway, right? Shrugging, Dell stuffed the slippers into their knapsack.

Focusing once more on the task at hand, Dell looked around some more, eventually uncovering a rusted iron dagger and a coffin full of nothing but ash-filled urns. Dell didn’t have much interest in picking through someone’s funerary ashes, but they did stuff the dagger into their belt. Honestly, they didn’t really care if it was lost or not, but maybe it could be spruced up by a professional?

As they looked around, it was quite a surprise to Dell when they spotted a coffin that seemed to have already been rifled through, the covering cracked a tad to reveal the impenetrable darkness inside. What was even stranger were the glyphs painted across the petrified wood’s surface, though, decorated with rich golden orpiment, red ochre, and shimmering green malachite.

A bolt of excitement ran through Dell at this. All the other caskets were unpainted, plain! Surely there was something special in this wooden bone box, even if it appeared to have already been opened. The— the wind or the rats or something must have stirred it enough to cause the lid to slide. After all, the rest of the caskets seemed hardly disturbed enough to indicate the presence of other, er, graverobbers.

With a trembling hand (the other holding the torch up to see by, of course), Dell slid the casket’s lid open further—

And promptly screamed their fool head off as a bony, slimy, horrifically alive hand shot out and snatched them by the wrist, dragging them bodily downward with such preternatural force that their entire arm up to the shoulder was yanked inside the coffin’s unknown depths, their skull cracking so fiercely against the wooden box that it drew blood. Dell’s knees collided hard with the stone floor, the impact of slamming into the coffin momentarily stunning them and sending a shower of ashen corpse dust raining down over their head, the light of their torch swinging wildly across the crypt walls as they struggled to keep it aloft.

Regaining their senses, Dell jerked desperately in an attempt to free their arm from the skeletal hand’s merciless grip, watching in mounting horror as the coffin lid crashed to the ground and some sort of armored, skull-faced… thing sat up from inside it, the empty sockets where its eyes might have once been blazing with an indescribable, terrible fury that seemed to bore into their very soul.

Bolog Aaz, Mal Lir!” the undead roared despite seeming to lack both lips and a tongue, a powerful stench of decay hitting Dell square in the face. The unfortunate graverobber could only gape, eyes nearly bugging out of their skull in terror.

Too late did they see that the dungeon sentry’s other hand held aloft a sword. It was sheer luck that Dell’s flailing brought their torch into the sword’s path, the collision of burning wood and blade sending a cascade of fiery red embers into the air, startling the undead into loosening its grip and sending Dell toppling backward on their ass.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Dell didn’t waste a second. They snatched up their knapsack full of goodies and ran, scrambling up the stairs so fast that they briefly fell down, shoes slipping in the puddles of swampwater that had formed on the steps. Behind them, they could hear the sound of cracking bone and clanking armor as the creature began its pursuit, but that only spurred them on faster.

Bursting out from the underground and panting wildly for breath, Dell’s head swung around, eyes searching frantically for someplace to wait the creature out.

Where to hide, where to hide—
 

Arthur Morgan

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Huddled into a crouch beside the fallen trunk of a tree, Dell waited, rusted dagger clutched in one white-knuckled hand.

Leaning their forehead against the damp, prickly moss covering the rotten hunk of wood, Dell struggled to catch their breath. Ragged gasps of air seemed to echo back at them from the misty, silent bog. In a jerky movement, they tugged the bandana around their neck up to wipe the blood and sweat from their eyes before continuing to stare out into the night, face ashen and hands trembling.

The entrance to the crypt yawned before them, gaping and terrible. Suddenly the jungle air felt heavier, warmer, and they dearly missed the torch they’d dropped in their haste to escape. Amorphous shapes seemed to shift in the ink-like blackness before their very eyes, half-reflections glaring back at them from the pools of rancid water dotting the marshy ground, perception distorted from the terror swirling in their mind.

Dell’s grandfather used to refuse to sleep in rooms with mirrors. He’d take them off the wall, cover them with bedsheets. Demons, he’d said. Evil spirits come to fill the void-like realm that resides behind a simple pane of glass. Dell had laughed, still a teenager and thinking the old man dumb and senile. But now, the reflections staring out from a bunch of puddles were downright sinister, cesspits of glistening negative energy that seemed to reach out and claw at them.

The collapsed walls of the ruins were far more oppressive without the comfort of daylight. The remnants of ancient parapets half-sunk into the soft, water-logged earth cast long shadows across the marsh, the local plant life smothering them in vein-like tangles that glistened with swampwater. But it wasn’t the bog around them that kept Dell riveted to the spot, though various dangers could’ve presented themselves from that corner, as well. No, no— it was the dank and dusty funeral shaft that they had come flying out of moments before that had them frozen, scarcely daring to blink for fear that something might arise out of the darkness without catching their notice.

From their hiding place, Dell could hardly see down the tunnel for all the vegetation and cobwebs obscuring their view. This did not stop them from trying.

“This place…” Dell hissed under their breath, shivering despite the warm climate.

It had been a mistake to come here. Sure, Dell had been all too willing to engage in the trade of dark archaeology if it meant furthering their research, and right now they were kind of willing to own that. But now something better left buried— better left dead—was awake, searching for the living hand that dared to disturb its eternal rest…

What was once a warm and golden twilight had settled inevitably into an eerie dusk, not a trace left behind to guide Dell through the copse of tangled trees and promote a hasty retreat. No wild voices rang out in the night, the birds all asleep or flown elsewhere, their absence felt deeply as an icy silence, the same kind found in a tomb, surged forward to fill the vacant space left behind.

All was trapped in a kind of dream-like stillness… but this was no dream; the frantic beating of Dell’s heart assured them it wasn’t.

All at once a whisper-like sound came from the bottom of the limestone staircase… a shuffling, limping, shambling kind of sound that bounced off the walls of the cramped corridor to reach Dell’s ears, a nightmarish sound that sent electric tingling sparking along their skin and felt like crooked, rotten fingers caressing the hair at the nape of their neck, dry and bone-chilling.

Staring into the dark with a sinking feeling in their gut, body poised to run, they listened to the sliding, dragging footsteps as they grew ever closer, the sound of gravelly dirt being ground underfoot causing their heartbeat to leap and jerk uncontrollably within their breast.

Dell breathed in sharply as the creature emerged from the depths of the crypt, illuminated by what few shafts of moonlight managed to slip through the trees. Its body was dry of blood, remnants of ashen skin clinging to its skeleton. Due to a distinct lack of lips, the undead creature’s teeth were bared in an eternal grin. A rind of rotting scalp and hair clung to the top of its skull, the smell of decay detectable even from Dell’s hiding place.

The leather and iron armor the undead wore jogged a memory, as did the heavy two-handed greatsword the ghastly creature held aloft. It wasn’t until after they saw the eyes, visible once the creature turned its stiffened neck (the sound of dried tendons snapping distinctly audible), that Dell became certain of what they were dealing with.

Twin azure flames glowed from within its empty eye holes, flickering and dancing like foxfire. Draugr.

What felt like a blanket of cold settled over Dell. Now they really regretted not running off into the jungle. They had come prepared for booby traps, curses, infected rat bites— but never draugr. All they had was a stupid rusty dagger! Maybe if they still had their torch they’d stand a better chance, light the sucker on fire at a distance and watch it shrivel up like a piece of burning newspaper. A rusted dagger, though? It wouldn’t stand a chance against that massive greatsword.

The draugr glanced around, a kind of vile curiosity seeming to emanate from its flaming eye sockets. Dell shrank further down behind the log, almost believing that they could feel the threads of sanity that kept them grounded in this green hell snapping one by one.

Oh, hell. They wouldn’t be able to leave until this thing lost interest in looking for them, would they? Who knew how long that could take. It was almost guaranteed that this draugr hadn’t been above ground in quite a while and would likely extend this little jaunt outside to patrol its “territory”. Shit!

Very near to hyperventilating, Dell didn’t notice as a stranger stepped out from behind one of the above-ground tombs. They also didn’t notice as this stranger raised his arm, squinting down the sights of a pistol as he took aim at the back of the undead’s head.

What they did notice, however, was the explosive, hammer-striking-metal BANG!
 

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A splintering shink sound rang out as the bullet struck the draugr’s naked skull; the emaciated undead staggered with the blow, chips of stark white bone flying out and scattering across the dark soil. Yet it did not crumple to the ground like Arthur had thought it would, instead spinning around with its massive sword to face him.

Arthur had an instant to flip-cock his pistol before the armored thing was upon him, its two-handed sword bearing down straight for his head. Hurling himself to the side to avoid certain decapitation—his heart beating a bit faster when he felt the sharp breeze of the swinging sword whistle by his ear—the man watched as the undead pitched wildly past him, the mighty weight of its weapon dragging the rest of its body inexorably along.

He rose again in a slight crouch, shoulders hunched and knees bent in preparation for another charge. And charge the creature did, the decayed tendons of its limbs flexing and visibly blistering off as it raised its sword high above its head, the ancient metal glinting dully as the undead readied for another savage swing. But this time, Arthur wasn’t going to move out of the way. Oh, no— he had something else up his sleeve.

In the span of time it took for the creature to reach him, Arthur had been studying the skeletal fingers wrapped around the sword’s hilt, most of them stripped of their rotten skin and reduced to bone. It was because of this that just as the draugr brandished its sword for a killing blow, Arthur raised his gun in kind, took aim, and fired.

The gun went off with a sharp crack. A horrible CRnNCH accompanied the gun’s firing, the draugr’s wrist fracturing into a mess of bone shards where the bullet struck it. The sword dropped from the undead’s now-lax grip, the wickedly sharp blade plunging into the mud somewhere to Arthur’s left. The draugr, unable to correct its forward momentum, just kept on coming.

While Arthur wasn’t quick enough to keep the draugr's unchecked weight from bowling him over into the dirt, he was quick enough to draw his hunting knife. His arm wound up wedged higher between their bodies than expected, though, and instead of the undead falling on his knife, the blade cut a mean slice along the side of its face and rammed straight into its eye socket— practically a bullseye, in Arthur’s opinion.

The creature screamed, an absolutely ghoulish sound, like a stuck pig and a yowling cougar all rolled into one. Arthur recoiled as its entire frame seemed to shake and shudder, eldritch energy leeching off its frame and rippling in searing bursts over his skin. Eerie blue flames lapped around the blade of his knife—tongues of fire reaching out to just barely graze the tips of his fingers with numbing cold—before heaving a gasping, choked sputter and dying.

It took a moment for Arthur to recover his wits enough to shove the heavy armored body off, the former undead toppling onto the ground beside him with a weighted clunk. Breathing hard and wincing a little from all his organs being very nearly pulverized, Arthur struggled to his feet. He fished his hat up from where it'd flown off in the tussle, replacing it upon his head with a strained exhale.

When he thought to look for the person he’d saved, he found them standing a few feet away, expression caught somewhere between awed, relieved, and apologetic.

“Oh my god. Ohmygod. Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

“What did you do to make that thing so angry?” Arthur wondered aloud, still a bit shaken and not at all apologetic about taking the person responsible to task. He’d be damned if this stranger looked a day over sixteen, much less equipped to be wandering around in this… this place.
 

Arthur Morgan

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Spirits of Vengeance
Arthur wasn’t sure what he was expecting the stranger to do. Certainly not for them to turn all shifty-eyed and twitchy on him, suddenly seeming fit to burst out of their skin with agitation, torn up inside by some secret shame he wasn’t privy to. Their black hair corkscrewed in every possible direction, brown eyes refusing to meet his own.

If he hadn’t known any better, Arthur almost could’ve said that look was… embarrassment. He could only guess why that might be; maybe their lack of weapons to defend themselves with aside from… what, a rusted knife? That leather vest wouldn’t’ve helped much, neither. Whatever their reasons for being embarrassed were, the red-faced expression made their already youthful face seem even younger, somehow. It almost made him want to cut them some slack.

Almost.

“Ah, what? No, no— you have it all wrong, I didn’t… that is to say, I wasn’t trying to… I mean, uh…” the stranger stammered. Arthur didn’t miss the tell-tale way their hands clenched tighter around the seams of the little bag they were carrying, clutching it closer to their body as they rambled on like a fool.

“...right.” Arthur said, casting a dubious eye at the stranger from under the brim of his hat. “What’s in the bag?”

It hardly seemed possible, but the person turned at least ten shades grayer at that, like the very life was being sucked out of ‘em. “Excuse me?”

Arthur moved closer to the stranger. They took a hasty step back, flinching hard and grip turning white-knuckled on their bag— probably thought he had reason to rob them. Hell, a long time ago he might’ve done it, too. But all Arthur did was take a seat on the half-rotted log the stranger’d sought refuge behind before, fully taking advantage of an opportunity to rest his bones.

His body did it more out of habit than anything; he felt fine, mostly, save for the lingering chill clinging to his hand where the dead man’s fire had touched him. It was still strange, not having that cloud of tiredness hanging over him all the damn time. He wondered, rather dimly, how long that would last.

Hands braced on his knees, the man took a good look around at the crumbling tombs dotting the grove around them, casual as you please. His eyes came to rest on the skeletal body slumped on the ground, its head bent at an odd angle and one arm outstretched toward its sword, still embedded upright in the dirt. He absently rubbed his cold fingers into the leg of his jeans, trying to chase the icy feeling away.

He’d never seen anything like it. Or, rather, there’d been that one odd man in Saint Denis, the one who drank blood and tried to stab him for stumbling across one of his gruesome kills, but that man was deranged, sick in the head. This hadn’t been like that. He knew he’d put down a shambling corpse, for certain. He needed answers.

The man glanced to the kid, who’d been observing his movements with a kind of jittery trepidation thus far.

“Well, the way I see it, that dead feller was after you for a reason. Maybe you was trespassing, but I’m inclined to believe that ain’t all there is to it,” said Arthur, turning a narrow look on them. “Now, I’m gonna ask again. What’d you do?”

“I had to do it! There wasn’t anything else I could do!” the stranger burst out with, wringing the bag’s material anxiously. Their tone turned pleading, like they thought he was some judge of morality and good deeds come to rain hell down upon them if they so much as breathed wrong. Would’ve been funny, if it weren’t for how just plain tired Arthur felt.

Sighing, Arthur turned his hands so they were palms up. Placating. A show of good faith. “Listen. I ain’t gonna… do whatever you think I’m gonna do. Just show me what you’ve got in the bag, that’s all I’m asking.”

They eyed him for a long moment. Arthur could literally see the conflict brewing on their face, all the tiny expressions they made painting a clear picture of their thoughts. This was the kind of person that wore their heart on their sleeve and couldn’t lie worth a damn, he knew; it was hard to imagine they’d done anything worth being hunted down by some creature for. Still, looks could be deceiving, he supposed.

Finally, the young stranger seemed to relent, their shoulders sagging as they practically shoved the bag in his face.

Arthur raised an eyebrow and accepted the bag. With wary anticipation churning in his gut, he pulled the drawstrings of the knapsack apart and reached inside. His face immediately creased in a frown.

In his hand was… a shoe?

“What’s this, then?” he asked, carelessly turning the thing in his hands. It was crumpled, faded, and unquestionably old. It smelled strongly of dust, and something else. Something he couldn’t quite place his finger on. Kind of fruity, if he had to put a word to it—

“I stole it off a dead person’s foot.”

Hissing sharply through his teeth, Arthur promptly dropped the shoe back into the bag, trying not to breathe in the plumes of gray dust that came sputtering out in its wake. “Why in the hell would you do that?” he demanded.

“Well…” the kid was looking anywhere but at him. “I needed to sell it for the money. I’m doing some research at the university and I didn’t have enough to start my own expedition team, so I thought I’d come out here and find something worthwhile to speed things along. I know it wasn’t right, but I just really needed the money.”

By the time they’d finished speaking, they almost seemed hysterical, practically tearing their hair out. That was fine, though— they could stew for a few seconds anyway; he’d heard enough about money for a lifetime. The thing was, Arthur was still stuck on one word.

“There’s a school around here?” He looked around, taking in the mist and the jungle canopy blotting out the sky. It seemed impossible that someone would build a place of learning in a dark, unfriendly place such as this… but that was beside the point, at least for now.

Shaking his head to rid himself of distracting thoughts, Arthur held out the bag for the kid to take. “You need to put this back. No good’s ever come of stealing from somebody long dead.”

They shot him a ragged, wild-eyed look, recoiling bodily from the knapsack. “I can’t! What if there’s another one of those things down there, waiting for me?”

Skillfully, Arthur drew his gun from its holster once more, hand tightening ‘round the grip. “I’ll supervise.”
 

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Spirits of Vengeance
The night crept along. Arthur was glad to leave the dusty bowels of the crypt behind, actually welcomed the press of his boots against the pulpy earth and the mud gathering on them. It was infinitely preferable to standing in a dark room surrounded by bones and choked with dust, anyhow.

Arthur looked around at the trees, at the stone tombs scattered about the landscape. The fog seemed to be lifting, the gray haze breaking off from the ground and winding around the forest canopy like clouds drawn too close to the earth. What interested him was that the frogs seemed to be kicking up a fuss again— in concert with the crickets, of course. That felt natural, and settled something deep inside him that he hadn’t known was disturbed.

Still, he had hoped to see something more… familiar. Something he recognized, like a particular turn in a heretofore unseen road or a marked tree. But as the fog broke, all that was revealed to him were dozens of graves, the gray stones jutting up toward the sky in all their crumbling glory.

He turned as the kid began making a fuss beside him, having emerged from the underground tomb a few steps behind himself. They were jumping about, patting down their clothes and muttering somesuch about spiders and bugs. It occurred to him, then, that he had no idea who this stranger was, really, or where they might be going now that he’d saved their life.

That were an easy enough fix. All he had to do was ask.

Arthur cleared his throat. The kid looked at him, a glint of curiosity in their eyes. “So,” Arthur said. “This school you was talking about. You… get your schooling there?”

They shrugged, rubbing uneasily at the back of their neck. “Oh, uh. Sort of. The University is more like a gathering of minds, I guess. It’s not exactly a traditional place of learning for most, it’s all about documentation and mapping out the landscape. I know a lot of professors there who are interested in only plants, or animals, or just artifacts. Students like me, we’re there to assist with the research, not attend classes like you’d think.”

Truth be told, Arthur didn’t know what to think. He’d never sat in on a class, that was for sure.

“Sounds mighty interesting,” he said, though the words came out gruffer than he meant. He glanced around, searching for some lighter conversation, but unfortunately all that came out was, “Your university make a habit of letting kids like you go digging through graveyards?”

The kid puffed up, a scowl on their face. “No! We’re usually supposed to go out with a group, with supplies and protection and such. It’s very organized. And it is NOT ‘digging through graveyards’, thank you very much. It’s archaeological research, very important to preserving ancient cultures. I just, uhm… decided to take matters into my own hands, so to speak. And I’m not a kid!”

“Uh-huh,” replied Arthur, doubtful. “How old’re you, then?"

They crossed their arms tightly over their chest, a sour look on their face. “Sixteen. Old enough.”

Old enough, huh? Arthur nodded very seriously, running a hand over his mouth as if deep in thought, but really fighting to keep just how funny that was from showing on his face. Judging by the deepening of the kid’s scowl, he hadn’t quite managed it.

Sobering up, Arthur figured that subject were best left alone unless he wanted an ill-tempered kid on his hands. “Alright then. You got a name?”

The kid eyed him. “Dell Martin. And you?”

For a moment, Arthur considered whether or not he should invent some kind of alias to go by, in the event that the law got word of him being alive and well. The thought passed quickly, though; his better nature informed him that surely there weren’t any harm in telling some kid his real name.

“Arthur Morgan. It’s a pleasure.” Contrary to the nature of his lifestyle, one thing he’d learned along the way was manners. Hosea’d made sure of that— the old man could charm the pants off near anyone on a bad day, a gentleman to his core.

This thought darkened Arthur’s mood immensely, reminding him of events that he’d only just begun to forget. He felt resentful of the fog for leaving, for its absence made the graves scattered around seem as if they were glaring at him, the strange writing on the stones blurring into names he thought he might recognize if he looked close enough.

Having noticed a sudden change in his face, or his stance, or something, Dell leaned forward, concerned. “Hey. You okay there?”

An abrupt cry rang out from somewhere beyond the treeline, startling them both. It was rough and pitched high enough to rival the shriek of a train's steam whistle, a sound unlike any animal Arthur’d heard before, that was for sure. But he was grateful for it: the sudden noise had swiftly cured him of his black mood.

“We’d best move along, get to that school of yours,” Arthur muttered, adjusting his satchel’s strap on his shoulder. He paused a moment, though, and turned to examine the fallen dead man lying on the ground near the crypt entrance.

The shriveled and decayed skin of the body seemed one harsh breeze away from crumbling to dust, the fingers of one outstretched hand curved like claws where they dug into the marshy ground. Its head, twisted unnaturally to the side and no longer simmering with ghastly blue fire, stared blankly at nothing, mouth gaping open and face contorted in painful rigor mortis.

Following the length of the outstretched hand with his eyes, Arthur grasped the hilt of the dead man’s sword, the strange runic designs on the pommel capturing his attention just as much as the wickedly sharp, albeit very obviously ancient blade. The silver metal caught the light as he turned it in his hands, the weight of it feeling oddly satisfying.

“Here,” he said, and made to pass it over hilt-first to the kid, who merely stared at the extended weapon. “You keep it. Might even earn you some respect from your friends.”

Eyes wide, Dell took the weapon, fumbling with the heft of it before finding a more solid grip. They looked it over, though for the life of him Arthur couldn’t tell just what expression they might’ve been wearing.

Finally, they looked at him, a small smile on their face. “Thanks.”

Custody of the ancient weapon settled, Arthur gestured for them to lead the way, head turning to watch the trees with suspicion. He had the strangest feeling they were being watched.
 

Arthur Morgan

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Spirits of Vengeance
As the fog lifted further, the sensation of being watched still did not abate. The jungle seemed to swallow Dell and Arthur up like the insides of a massive green beast, thorny branches tearing at their clothing and leafy fronds smacking at their arms and legs as they walked, falling back into place to conceal the way back. Mud squelched under Arthur’s boots with every step, clouds of insects swirling in the air and posing no small annoyance to the pair during their travels.

It should’ve been an unpleasant experience, especially considering all the unseen dangers the excess foliage hid from view. But regardless of the cloyingly humid air, Arthur found himself marveling at the untapped wilderness that seemed to only grow wilder and more dense as time wore on— a pure, unadulterated natural scene without end in sight. He’d expected to see a road or bridge by now in a marshland this thick. After all, he distinctly recalled stumbling across a couple homesteads when wandering the mostly uninhabited region of Bayou Nwa, not to mention the innumerable man-made walkways bridging the gap between one side of the swampland and the next. But all he could see were the pathways created by animals, barely-there tunnels made from bent grasses and snapped twigs.

Ordinarily Arthur would’ve been glad to wander so much land free from the burden of civilization, but it began to grow concerning after a while, when the tangle of trees only seemed to grow thicker and more uncomfortably hemmed in. So concerning, in fact, that he opted to express as much to his young companion.

“Strange, there not being any roads in these parts,” Arthur said, his attention divided between making conversation and pulling his boot from the mud. Dell was walking a ways ahead of him, the ancient sword strapped to the back of their pack thunk-ing loudly with every step.

“Yeah,” Dell agreed, and for a moment Arthur thought that maybe they, too, were just as surprised as he was at the lack of any discernible roads. But then they sighed, turning their head to look wistfully at a particularly vibrant flowering plant. “Kraw is a truly remarkable world, inhospitable as it is. It's part of why I'm here.”

Arthur came to an abrupt halt, hung up on a particular part of that admission. “Come again?”

Dell stopped and looked back at him. Confused as to why he'd stopped. “Kraw. That is... the planet we’re on right now?”

Arthur’s thoughts, much like his feet, seemed incapable of moving. He was dimly aware that his hands were clenched into fists, his shoulders hunched as if braced for a devastating blow, and he tried (really, he did) to loosen up. Still, he could not prevent the keenly serious expression that came over his face, his blue eyes steely as they fixed on Dell’s own. “You’re joking.”

Dell shifted nervously. Turned their gaze to the ground, searching for the solution to their traveling companion’s sudden change in mood.

“No...?” they said, the unvoiced question plain as day in their facial expression. Where do you think we are right now, cowboy?

Arthur stood there for a moment. His head hurt, vision spinning a bit. He attempted to focus on a nearby tree— gaze zeroing in on the texture of the bark and the diamond shape of its leaves to no discernible effect. What…

So, he was in some strange rendition of hell. That had to be it. A bad man like him, doing bad things to other people all his life… there had to have been repercussions for that. And here he was, in some dark forest where the dead walked and every step was plagued with locusts and filth. To think, he’d almost been fooled into believing nothing was different, wrong. Arthur wasn’t a religious man by any means, but this was the only explanation his fevered mind could turn up with, the only reason for something so grave and inexplicable.

A touch to his arm drew him out of his depressive stupor. Just a gentle tap, the very tips of Dell’s fingers grazing his arm, but it was enough to snap him back to reality. They were studying him, concern evident on their face. At this, confusion churned within Arthur’s mind anew. He stared helplessly at them, something like anger or sadness in his eyes.

Dell was just a kid, Arthur reminded himself. A bit dumb, stealing from a tomb like that, but just a kid all the same. They’d been speaking about some kind of… school, before. It didn't sound like a lie, and if it was, they were very dedicated to their little fiction. Could it be true, then, that he was no longer part of the world he’d known? He didn’t know what to believe.

Straightening up, Arthur fought to school his face into something less devastated, less vulnerable. He looked away from Dell, one hand itching for a drink, a smoke, something. But all he did was gently shrug off their concern and their hand, attempting to center himself. Think of a plan. Think of the here and now, not the future or his tumultuous past.

He’d follow Dell to wherever they were going, find out the truth from someone with more authority, someone who could maybe offer an explanation for all this. Maybe the kid was telling the truth. Maybe they just thought what they were saying was the truth. Worse, maybe they reckoned they could pull the wool over his eyes, play him for a fool. But that last line of thinking was paranoia, the path of madness and morons. He’d find out soon enough, but he was confident that Dell was telling the truth, as much as the very idea bothered him.

Arthur rolled his shoulders, shrugging as if he could physically remove the weight of the world resting on his back.

“Alright,” he said. “Where’s this university, then? It far?”

Dell eyed him for a moment longer than Arthur felt was needed, their brows knit together in obvious worry. The man bristled subconsciously, bulking up like a startled tomcat to make himself bigger, more formidable seeming. It was a relief when they turned to look out at the shadowy trees and sky thoughtfully—judging the time of day, no doubt—the weight of their gaze no longer seeming to bore into his very soul, dredging up unwanted thoughts and doubt.

“Just a day or so of walking…” Dell said slowly, and when they looked back at him Arthur had managed to regain some of his earlier bluster, appearing less cagey and spooked-like.

“Good,” Arthur gave a nod, gestured in the direction they’d been walking. “Let’s get on with it.”
 

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Spirits of Vengeance
For a time they walked in silence, the only sounds being the crunch of leaves and sticks underfoot and the buzzing of flies. The walking and quiet gave Arthur time to think, though he didn’t feel as if he got much thinking done, truly. His mind was all scattered, like Dell’s words had sent his thoughts careering into the sky like a flock of birds at the first crack of a gun. It kept occurring to him again and again that he didn’t rightly know where he was, that he didn’t know the person beside him from Adam, and that he weren’t even too sure what his place in the world was after all that had happened with the gang, with the law, with John and his family. But these disjointed thoughts came and went, blurring together like the thousands of leaves making up the jungle canopy overhead.

It was a few hours later when Dell drew to an abrupt halt, wheezing and leaning against a tree trunk to regain control of their breath. Arthur, on the other hand, had never felt better. Sure, he was a bit parched and his legs burned from walking for so long, but his chest and lungs felt clear, drawing deep, gulping breaths with an ease he hadn’t felt for months. He felt almost greedy, drinking the air in like he was, but the sensation was just too good to question.

The pair had come across a small stream, the gently babbling waters seeming cool and delicious after bearing the jungle heat. Some trees drooped at the water’s edge, casting long shadows over the bank and shallow waters. As Arthur stooped down to get a closer look at some small fish swimming in the shallows, he noted some animal tracks trailing through the soft mud, a few appearing as small as sparrow’s feet while others were notably larger.

One set of tracks in particular drew his attention. Three-toed, even-spaced feet, like a large turkey. Arthur traced the damp impressions with the tips of his fingers. They seemed to retreat into the brush of the bank the two were resting on, tangles of low-hanging branches obscuring their path from view.

“Say, Dell,” said Arthur. “There some kinda big birds wandering around here?”

Setting their pack down with a clunk, Dell perked right up, coming closer to inspect the marks, as well. They looked over his shoulder at the prints, noting the prominent two digits digging into the ground, a third more deeply embedded, almost hooking into the wet earth.

“I wouldn’t doubt it. This place is an absolute hellscape of vicious, bloodthirsty animals. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were giant murderous chickens wandering around, ready to peck the eyes straight out of your head,” Dell muttered, looking uncertainly around. “I wouldn’t know much about it, though. I’m here to study plants, not the wildlife.”

Arthur chuckled, eyes crinkling at the corners. It felt like the first genuine laugh he’d had in ages. “Murderous chickens? Whatever left these tracks, it ain’t much bigger than a turkey. Maybe 30, 35 pounds. Nothing we need to worry about.”

Dell crossed their arms. “That’s where you’d be wrong, Mr. Morgan. A lot of the smaller beasts around here… fate hasn’t exactly given them a fair shake at surviving on Kraw. There’s always something bigger and badder lurking just around the corner, waiting to eat them up. But the little guys, they like to team up. It makes taking down larger prey much easier.”

“You’re telling me there’re packs of turkeys running around, trying to take down deer?”

“Not just deer,” Dell said ominously. “I’ve heard they can get people, too. Especially after nightfall. Tear them right to shreds.”

Arthur laughed again, shaking his head. He paused, though, upon seeing the serious look on Dell’s face, the slight agitation. “You’re not joking, are you.”

Dell sighed. “No, I’m not. Though I wish I was.”

Arthur shoved himself to his feet. They’d rested long enough, and he could swear he felt multiple sets of eyes on him once more, though that could’ve been the paranoia talking.

“You reckon we’ll make it to your school before dark?”

“I really hope so.” The for our sake went unspoken.
 

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Spirits of Vengeance
The land gradually became less flat and soaked through with water, the sight of tree roots delving deeper into the soil—not floating on the surface of a soupy half-dirt half-water mixture—becoming more common as the swamp seemed to dry up. The dark and gloomy understory cast hazy shadows over their surroundings, although plenty of flowering plants appeared to erupt in bright pops of color from the shade. Dell was sure to tell Arthur about all of them, from a fiery orange brush-like plant they called a monkey brush vine to a vibrant red passion flower, hundreds of the little blooms trailing down from the top of the jungle canopy.

Arthur even stopped to pick a few, gently plucking what looked like an orchid flower off the trunk of a tree and storing it in his satchel where it wouldn’t be overly crushed or damaged. Figured it might come in handy, if he needed to sell something in a pinch. Dell seemed doubtful about that (“It’s a beautiful plant, but people around here are more likely to buy a pretty artifact or equipment, Mr. Morgan”), but Arthur held onto it anyway, certain that some use for it might be found.

Something, though, made it hard for him to concentrate on feeding into Dell’s chatter. His hand, the one that had felt the burn of that dead man’s inner fire when he stabbed it in the eye… it felt all twitchy and cold, like rivulets of ice were shifting and pulsing under the skin around his knuckles and fingernails. Like the skin was burning clear off. Yet, when he brought his hand up to his face to examine it, there was nothing. Nothing wrong with it, no bruises, no blood.

But Arthur felt like he was about to go nuts with the unnatural chill clinging to his hand, echoes of blizzard-like stinging traveling up his arm. He hoped the rest of him wouldn’t feel like this over time, in constant agony with no apparent cause.

He’d thought he’d hidden his discomfort well enough, but was surprised when Dell abruptly turned to him as they were walking, eyes narrow with suspicion. “Why do you keep looking at your hand like it’s about to fall off?”

Arthur shrugged, raising his hand to inspect it once more. “Not sure. Killing that thing—”

“The draugr,” Dell corrected.

“—killing that droggy-ur must’ve done something to my hand. It’s cold all over,” Arthur finished uncertainly, not sure how else to describe it other than ‘it feels like I’ve had my bare hand sticking in the frigid snow for several hours and now my skin’s peeling off.’

“That is definitely a problem,” Dell said, and they did look plenty worried. “Better hope it’s not some kind of Curse. Those are nasty. We have a few people at the university—curse breakers—who can handle that business, but I think they’d only do it for a fair bit of coin.”

“Hm,” said Arthur. He didn’t think he had much money on him. He tucked his hand into his pocket, ignoring the way the bending of his fingers to do so drew out a fresh bout of searing pain. That seemed to end the discussion, though Dell kept shooting him sidelong looks about it. Arthur supposed that was what those academic types did, wondered about things.

Something else, too, was bothering him. Something other than the pain in his hand. It was something he’d noticed a while before, by the creek and when walking through the dreary woods… a chilling, prickle-at-the-back-of-your-neck feeling of being watched. Because of this, Arthur walked with his shoulders drawn up, back stiff, and one hand resting on his belt near to his gun.

The eerie sensation of being watched only grew as the day wore on, the shadows of the trees sloping across the ground as nightfall drew closer. It was early evening by the time the two stopped again, this time breaking for a quick meal and libations. They’d found a good enough place to rest, a break in the monotonous horde of trees with several stones for sitting.

Arthur sat down on a rock and unscrewed the cap of his canteen with gusto, throat bobbing as he downed a few gulps of lukewarm creek water. His shirt was drenched in sweat, the unbelievable humidity of their surroundings doing him no favors. He idly swatted at a mosquito as it attempted to land on his arm, gaze slowly trailing back to the trees and brush around them. Once again, he found himself searching for eyes staring back at him from within the haze of green.

Dell, though, didn’t seem to notice anything, and it was bound to drive him out of his gourd. Arthur could’ve sworn he saw movement in the trees, swift shadows darting low to the ground and just out of sight. The trees were so close together that his binoculars didn’t yield much when he fished them out of satchel to take a better look, the leaves littering his vision.

Giving up for now, Arthur cracked open a can of peaches with his hunting knife, but paused when he caught a flash of something… silvery in the corner of his eye. Turning to look, he saw whatever it was clutched in Dell’s hands, an odd crinkling sound coming from it as they teared it apart. As he watched, they unfolded what looked like a bunch of nuts stuck together from the shiny silver film.

They were just about to take a bite when they noticed him watching. Raising a brow, Dell bit a chunk out of the weird nut bar, chewing it with gusto.

“What?” they asked, the words smothered by their mouthful of food.

“Never seen food… sealed up quite like that.” A few things were wrapped up in foil, sure. But this bar’s wrappings practically had to be torn apart to get at the food inside. It was just strange.

“It’s plastic and aluminum,” said Dell, taking another bite and finishing off the rest of the bar. They flapped the wrapper around a little, showing off the silvery sheen on the inside. “See, nothing too crazy.”

“Nothing too crazy,” Arthur agreed. He ducked his head, bringing the can to his mouth and sipping on the sweet peach juice inside. Wiping his mouth with the back of the hand holding onto the can, he cast a weary glance around. “I ain’t too sure about a lot of this, to be honest. It’s all crazy to me.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Dell admitted, leaning forward with their elbows on their knees. They looked at him with interest. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Arthur paused for a moment, debating internally, before he shook his head. “I’d never heard of someplace called Kraw before the word came out of your mouth. And I've been around, kid.”

Dell considered this, ticking their head from side to side in thought. “You know… it’s not uncommon for some people to just… show up one day, totally out of the blue around here. Sometimes they remember coming from someplace else. Sometimes not. It’s kind of a toss-up. But it’s the same everywhere, even on the other worlds.”

“There’s others?” asked Arthur, incredulous. He could feel an impending headache, like a thundercloud on the horizon. And his damned hand still felt like it was on fire.

Dell nodded slowly. “Uh-huh. I take it you’re from somewhere that doesn’t have more than one world?”

“No. ‘Least, there’s only one I know of that folks is living on.”

“That’s gotta be a lot to take in,” said Dell, eyes wide and sympathetic. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier? I could’ve helped explain stuff.”

Arthur shrugged. “Figured it didn’t matter much, or that I’d eventually find out from somebody at this school of yours. Before all… this, I don’t think I was in good shape. I thought I’d died, or something close to it. And now… now I’m here.”

Dell was silent for a long time. So silent that Arthur looked up at what little he could see of the steadily darkening sky, the mass of leaves overhead seeming to whisper to each other as the wind moved through them. He twisted the can of peaches between his hands for a moment, thoughtful. Then he looked back at Dell. “You ever hear of something like that?”

The kid stared at him, a little bit of wetness in the corners of their eyes. They nodded. Arthur wasn’t sure if that were comforting or not, knowing that there were others suffering the same fate as he, but the kid’s apparent sadness was what bothered him the most about this situation.

For a long moment he merely watched as Dell toyed with the wrapper in their hands, the crinkling seeming like their uncertainty and anxiety given a physical form. Huffing, Arthur set down his canned fruit and twisted around to reach into his satchel. Brought out his journal, the very sight of the smooth brown cover and cream pages easing his mind, even if only just a little.

“Here,” he said, holding it out to Dell. They eyed it wordlessly, eyes flitting between it and Arthur’s face. “I’ve drawn a few plants in there, from where I come from. Maybe you’ll get a kick out of it.”

Eyes widening, Dell gingerly took the book from him and opened it on their lap. The man eyed Dell’s face, watching their expression. He felt oddly anxious about doing this, on edge, but knew he needed to settle down. It wasn’t as if he could snatch it back now, anyhow.

They began to turn the pages with gentle fingers, mouth dropping open into a perfect ‘o’ upon seeing the drawings inside. “You’re an artist?”

At Dell’s question, Arthur smiled, sheepish, but shook his head. “Of a kind. It’s just something to do to pass the time.”

Dell looked at him, gobsmacked.

“But these are… these are amazing! There’s… people, and animals, and flowers!” Dell exclaimed, their eyes roving over the page— they’d opened it to somewhere just about in the middle. They didn’t seem to be reading any of his entries; probably to give him some privacy. Slowly, something inside Arthur seemed to relax, like a tense muscle being unwound.

“That’s mighty kind of you,” he said, reaching down to pick up his can of peaches again, hands itching for something to hold. As he gulped down a few sugary bits of peach, he continued to watch carefully as Dell turned the pages, the kid seeming to delight at each scribble of graphite on the page. Arthur, on the other hand, was stealthily trying to figure out where they were in his journal— at what point in time they were, what bit of his history they were becoming privy to.

Suddenly, Dell gasped. Their eyes sparkled with interest as they turned the journal around so he could see the page. “What kind of plant is this?”

Arthur finished chewing, swallowed, and leaned over, eyes on the page. It was a burdock plant judging by the prickly burrs, and above it was a loosely illustrated squirrel on the same page, a nut loosely held between its paws. He looked at the drawn plant again, then nodded to himself.

“That right there is some burdock. It’s a tall plant, has some purple flowers,” said Arthur, going back to his food.

Dell seemed liable to bounce right out of their seat from excitement. “This is so cool. I’m guessing these burrs attach to animals, helping to disperse the plant’s seeds. I’ve never seen plants from another universe before, though, so— is that how it works where you’re from?”

“I guess,” said Arthur, and for a second that seemed to be all he had to say on the matter. But then he continued with: “Spent an awful lot of time picking them out of my horse’s tail after a ride.”

He didn’t think there’d be much of a difference between universes when it came to plants, to be honest. There was likely a plant just like it around here, in these very woods. He found it hard to imagine that every kind of plant known to man didn’t grow somewhere in this mess of plant life.

“Amazing,” Dell breathed. “You really captured the details here so well. I’ve never even seen one of these, but it’s drawn so well… I’ll bet it looks just like this in person.”

Arthur shrugged again, a bit reluctant to admit anything of the kind. He hadn’t been aiming for total accuracy, the drawing was just… something he did. It were soothing, like a beer after a long day of riding. Nothing special.

The kid continued to page through his journal, occasionally stopping to ask him questions about certain drawings in it. Arthur found himself telling Dell about the various uses of things like oleander sage, milkweed, and a whole host of mushrooms and berries. Apparently, some of the plants he was familiar with could commonly be found on Kraw or even one of the… other worlds. Others, Dell had never heard of before.

It was entertaining, for a while, to talk about the differences between his world and this one, but too much talk about it made him uncomfortable, restless. Dell seemed to pick up on this, usually when Arthur’s responses grew shorter and less invested, and would gladly switch topics whenever it came up.

Eventually it got to where Arthur tried to pay attention, he really did, but something just over Dell’s shoulder kept drawing his eye. Whatever it was, it weren’t moving much. It seemed to be closer every time he looked back, though he couldn’t exactly pinpoint it in all the plants. It was like the mysterious shape blended into the vegetation, natural camouflage hiding it from prying eyes.

Arthur took a sip from his canteen, slower this time. He nodded as Dell brought out their own notebook to show him some of Kraw’s native plants, eyes flitting to the page to take in several colored glossy-looking pictures of flowers and such, before settling irrevocably back on the strange shape lingering around their small campsite.

Slowly, Arthur set down his canteen.

Slowly, Arthur’s hand went for his gun.

Dell continued to talk. “And this flowering plant has been discovered to have some healing properties, usually for stomach aches and abdominal pain. Only the leaves though— the flowers are actually quite poisonous. That one took a bit of trial and error to figure out after a missing exploring party turned up dead, haha.”

“Interesting,” agreed Arthur, hand settling in a firm hold around the pistol grip. He tried to move as delicately as possible, not wanting to spook Dell too much or, worse yet, cause them to whirl around in a panic. He needed them docile, needed them to keep talking like nothing was wrong. He didn’t want whatever was stalking them to notice anything amiss.

Then, he saw it— a flicker of movement, like the leaves themselves were moving. And two small sets of eyes, diamond shaped and reptilian, staring at Dell’s exposed back.

So, there was two of them. Wonderful. Arthur silently slipped his gun from its holster.

“Hey, kid.”

“Yes?” Dell asked, only half paying attention. At his continued silence, they looked up. Their eyes widened, gaze falling upon Arthur’s hand on his gun.

“Hold still.”

Crack! A high-pitched screech rang out as one of the creatures dropped dead, feathers blasting everywhere. Its hunting partner dove for cover, feathered limbs flapping as it took off running, vanishing seamlessly into the jungle; Arthur didn’t even bother trying to shoot it. Dell cringed from on the ground, arms thrown protectively over their head as they waited for the smoke to settle.

Slowly, Arthur got up and walked over to inspect what he’d just killed, stepping through a low area of thorny brush to get there.

The creature’s body was long and lightly feathered, about twice the size of your average wild turkey. It had what appeared to be small claw-tipped arms tucked under its fallen body, the large wing feathers lining them crushed against the forest floor. It had a long tail, as well, light brown plumes fanning out at the very end to span across the ground. What drew his attention the most were the feet, though— three-toed, with one boasting a large, sickle-shaped claw, ideal for hooking into prey.

“What the hell is this?” said Arthur, hefting the dead creature up by its long, slender neck. Its body drooped in his grip, blood dripping onto the ground. Serrated teeth showed at the sides of its mouth, the exposed skin surrounding its glassy brown eyes and muzzle seeming almost scaly.

Dell looked up finally, shaking a little. They blinked at the animal hanging from Arthur’s grip. “That’s a velociraptor. A, ahem, a murder chicken.”

“This don’t look like any chicken I’ve ever seen,” Arthur grunted. He eyed it speculatively. “You think it’ll sell in—”

He stopped, realizing he didn’t rightly recall the name of the place they was headed to. He looked to Dell, eyebrows raised. They sighed.

“New Abraxas.”

“New Abraxas,” Arthur finished, trying out the name’s feel in his mouth. It sure was a strange one, kind of a mouthful. “You think it’ll sell there?”

“Probably. There’s a guy who buys pelts there all the time. He makes some stuff out of them, too. Mostly armor I think.”

Arthur nodded, accepting this new tidbit of information gladly enough. He glanced around, gaze coming to rest on where the other raptor had vanished into the trees. Humming to himself, he shifted his grip on the animal’s neck, tossing the rest of its body over his shoulder so that it’d be easier to carry its weight, and then walked over to gather up his satchel and the remnants of their meal.

“Well, let’s go ahead and move on. I don’t want to hang around long enough to find out if the other one’s got reinforcements on the way.”

Strangely, his hand didn't seem to be troubling him anymore.
 

Arthur Morgan

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Eventually the dense jungle gave way to a clearing, the edge of which Arthur skirted around, wanting to avoid stepping into the wide open space like the plague. What looked to be a fortress stood in the middle of this gap in the trees, tall wooden walls blocking most of what lay beyond them from view. Despite that, Arthur thought he could just barely glimpse the massive grey shapes of ancient columns and stone structures beyond, and clearly noted the black smoke from several outdoor fires gusting up into the sky.

Arthur stopped at the tree-line, squinting from beneath his cover of branches at the fortified walls. It reminded him of some of the military forts he’d come across, so naturally he wasn’t all that eager to be spotted by whatever lookouts might be patrolling the place. What’s more, it was nearing late evening, and the darkening sky provided little illumination as the day’s shadows grew oppressively long and gloomy. He couldn’t see any signs of life along the fort’s walls— that is, aside from the outline of a figure standing beside a torch at the gate, the glowing orange outline of the side of their face thrown into sharp relief.

“That’s New Abraxas,” Dell whispered from somewhere to his left. They blended in almost perfectly with the trees while standing. Arthur, meanwhile, had to crouch behind a thick section of brush to feel similarly hidden. As Arthur’s eyes continued to scour the walls for any signs of danger, Dell continued, “We should go say hello, get inside before it’s too dark to see.”

Tilting his head up, Arthur frowned. “You sure they’ll take kindly to a stranger showing up at their door?”

“Weeeeell, maybe not,” said Dell, nibbling on their bottom lip and staring nervously at the gate. Seeming to remember Arthur's presence, they quickly dashed away the uncertain expression and turned to him with a reassuring smile. “But I’m here, so things’ll be totally fine! I’ll be right behind you. Promise.”

Arthur shook his head. “That’s real reassuring.”

He looked again at the figure standing by the gate. They seemed fairly brawny, probably had a few inches on him in height, too. This didn't trouble him too much, he'd brawled with larger folks and won. What he was concerned about was the potential for another guard taking watch on the walls to see him, ask very few questions, and shoot him dead on the spot. Still, he supposed he'd take Dell's word for it— maybe these people would recognize the kid and welcome him by association.

Shrugging his shoulders, Arthur left his cover behind and stepped out into the open. Almost immediately the figure standing by the gate reacted, their posture shifting into something more alert, the little bit of muscular bulk he’d noticed from afar adding to their imposing fighter’s stance. Even from a distance, Arthur could see the way their hand dropped meaningfully to the machete strapped to their hip, the other brandishing a long, pointed spear.

“Stop right there,” they ordered, voice deep and commanding. “Who are you? State your business!”

Arthur felt more so than heard as Dell stepped out from the tree-line behind him. “Hi, Matty.”

“Dell!” the guard’s voice lightened considerably, sounding all at once much younger and more playful. The figure snatched up the torch attached to the wall behind them, the firelight illuminating their grinning face. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you! Mr. Scamander was worried!”

“I’ll bet,” Dell mumbled sourly under their breath. Raising their voice, they gestured to Arthur. “Matty, this is Arthur. He’s not from around here. Arthur, meet Matt. He guards the walls and stuff.”

“Howdy,” said Arthur, tipping his hat to Matt.

Matt brought the torch closer, going over to give Dell a half-hug, which they happily leaned into. Matt seemed to be a fairly young man, with dark mahogany-colored skin and long braided hair spilling over his shoulders. He was also wearing some kind of armor over a set of ordinary clothing, clearly made of a considerably thicker leather than Dell’s own vest; the sight of it made Arthur question just what was trying to get inside those walls, and why anyone in their right mind would volunteer for the job.

The other man looked at Arthur speculatively, taking in the outlaw’s mud-caked boots, holstered gun, and lopsided cowboy hat. Then, he stared more obviously at the dead creature hanging over Arthur’s shoulder. He wrinkled his nose. “Yuck, you ought to get that to the trapper before it rots, dude.”

“Here’s hoping,” said Arthur, shifting his grip on the raptor. He’d never been called ‘dude’ before. Weren’t too sure if he liked it.

“Well, um, yeah,” Dell interjected, looking quickly between the two. They slowly tugged the sword strapped to their pack free, attempting to show it to Matt. “I gotta get this in to sell, too, do you know anyone who might—“

“Whoa!” Matt said, taking in the massive rune-covered greatsword with wide eyes. Leaning his spear against the fortress wall, he took it from Dell, testing its heft and giving it a slow swing. He looked at them, grinning. “Is this where you’ve been, digging up swords?”

“Um, yeah,” said Dell, voice a little high. “I dug it up. Right.”

Arthur snorted, but kept his silence when Dell threw a pleading look his way.

Matt bobbed his head in a nod. “Yeah, this’ll totally sell. This is cool as fuck. But why’d you go out alone? I could’ve come with you, given you some protection. And no offense, Mr. Morgan my guy, but you could’ve run into bad people out there. People who’d kill you and take your shit!”

“I know,” Dell admitted quietly, looking at their feet. “I just wanted to get enough money to pay for my studies, Matty. And get away from this place for a while.”

Matt sighed. “I do know that. Trust me, you talk about it enough it’d be hard for me to forget it. But this isn’t Erde Nona, Dell. There’s no cute little countryside for taking strolls out here, this place is all wild. It would’ve been horrible if you’d gotten hurt, or worse: killed. I’d never forgive myself. You should be more careful or, better yet, keep helping Mr. Scamander out until you get a license to do some studies of your own. Sound good?”

Dell nodded glumly, but took the sword back from Matt when it was offered to them.

Matt grinned. “Cool. Now, let’s get you guys inside somewhere where the bugs’ll stop trying to eat you alive. I’ll even fill you in on what’s been going on since you’ve been out.”
 

Arthur Morgan

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It was strange, at least to Arthur, how even the most pitiful scraps of civilization could seem impressive after hours of slogging through nothing but tangled brush and trees. While New Abraxas weren’t much to write home about, the sight of a burning campfire and a modest collection of tents was enough to stir something in his chest, a flicker of something sentimental and a bit sad.

The dilapidated ruins, though, were something that set New Abraxas apart. Hulking wrecks of buildings towered over them as they passed through the gates, all cracked stone and crumbling foundations. They seemed like they were centuries old at the very least, with tents made of old canvas strung up in their shadows. Hell, some of the more intact structures even housed people judging by the dim yellow light shining through their openings, a doorway or two kitted out with a hanging lantern.

As Matt worked to close the massive gate behind them with the help of another sentry who’d been posted atop the wall, Arthur turned to Dell. “This place doesn't look like any school I’ve ever seen, Dell.”

“You went to school?” Dell asked, peering interestedly at him.

“Never in my life,” Arthur said dryly. “I had what you’d call an unconventional upbringing.”

Matt strode over to them and stood next to Dell. “Well then! Now that that’s over and done with, let’s head inside. Lee’s taking over the watch with Jason for an hour until I can head back.”

Arthur shook his head, gesturing at the raptor slung over his back. “Need to drop this off first. You point me in the right direction and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You’re going?” asked Dell, looking at him with a kind of spooked look. Like they were worried he’d go off and vanish the second he was out of their sight.

“Just for a bit. I’ll be around.”

Dell didn’t seem too sure about that, but thankfully Matt cut in, clapping them lightly on the shoulder. “The trapper’s thataway. Come on, Dell, let’s get you some of that hot leaf water you like,” he said, and then they were walking off in the direction of some kind of establishment built into the side of an old ruin, a strip of cloth hanging over the door that read… something, Arthur couldn’t quite make it out. Dell glanced back at him once or twice, seeming unsure, but kept walking.

Alone, Arthur sighed. Glancing around, he stood for a moment, watching the small groups of people clustered around their campfires, some busying themselves inside their tents or huts. No one seemed too interested in him or the cargo he carried, too busy with making conversation or enjoying the drink in their hands. He even heard someone singing, other voices rising to join theirs until a steady chorus of song had picked up, the merry sound traveling around the encampment.

Arthur turned and walked in the direction Matt had said the trapper was in, trying to ignore the memories that kind of easy companionship brought to the forefront of his mind. The unsettled feeling in his gut grew less powerful the further he walked away, and it weren’t too long before he spotted what he was looking for.

The layout of the trapper’s shop was darn familiar, though Arthur supposed there wasn’t too many things different or particularly revolutionary a body could do when selling nothing but pelts. It was a small stand with various pelts strewn over it, furs and reptile skins and whole sheaths of feathers arranged across the table for potential buyers to peruse. Some of the skins were much more colorful than he was used to seeing, though— he found himself particularly drawn to the sight of a skin stretched for drying on a willow hoop. Whatever animal this was had deep blue scales, with the vibrant green specks dotted across it seeming like fireflies drifting over a dark field.

“Finest wares in all the land. Look your fill,” greeted the man behind the stall, though Arthur hadn’t looked at him proper yet. He was too distracted by the assortment of strange animal skins littered around, thinking back to whether he’d ever seen something similar before.

Standing on the opposite side of the stand, Arthur eyed the other wares the trapper had for sale. It was only when he looked up that he realized that the man standing behind the stand was somewhat familiar, too: an older man, with a long, scraggly brown beard wearing a filthy yellow shirt and brown hat.

“Do I know you?” asked Arthur, frowning.

The old man gave him a considering look, the heavy wrinkles around his eyes crinkling further as he squinted, then shook his head. “A lot of folk hunt around here, I don’t remember every face.”

“Ah,” said Arthur. He’d been certain he knew this old feller’s face, but he was probably mistaken.

“You interested in selling?” the old trapper asked, interrupting Arthur’s thoughts. “Raptors like that make for sturdy garments, I’m telling you, especially when I’m the one making ‘em.”

“I reckon I am,” Arthur let the animal carcass slide off his shoulder, glad to have the weight finally removed. His eyes slid to a few coats hung haphazardly from a nearby hook. Without hesitation he reached out to feel the material of one coat between his fingers, surprising himself with how sturdy and thick it was. “You got any of these you’d be willing to trade?”

“I reckon,” said the trapper, echoing Arthur. Arthur passed the raptor over and the old man’s eyebrows lifted in pleasant surprise as he felt the heft of it. “This is a nice one. If you like any one of those coats there, I’ll trade you for it. The brown one you were interested in is pure raptorskin, real robust material. I wouldn’t want to be caught wearing anything else in a knife fight. Just don’t let it near fire, it’ll catch alight like nothing else.”

Arthur lifted the duster coat off its hook, examining it closer. The smooth brown material would fall to a little past his knees if he put it on, but was remarkably lightweight for how bulky it was. The former outlaw figured that could come in handy, though he didn’t expect to be getting into any knife fights anytime soon.

He nodded, tucking the coat away into the crook of his arm. “This’ll do.”

“It’s a deal,” said the old man, already turning away with a skinning knife glinting in his hand. “Good fortune and safe hunting!”
 
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