"So of all the ones who could possibly have a Boss cell..."
I looked up from the slip of paper listing eight names and locations.
Two of which had been crossed out as the agreed upon signs set in place by the ten that had gathered to guard the Boss cell holders of the time weren't in place.
In addition, I noted that two corpses with similar wounds had appeared in places extremely far from each other in the places where the signs were supposed to be.
I don't know who killed them, but if that Vampire Count was an indicator of anything, they were probably ambushed and assassinated for their Half of the Boss cell.
What their purpose was for trying to acquire a complete ball of time, energy and disease I don't know, but if that giant ballooned hulk of a green monstrosity had anything to say, it was probably a desire for more power.
'Not that it'll do you good if you can't control it.'
Recalling how the Vampire had transformed from a white skinned tall man with red eyes to a massive muscled green skinned freak show with red eyes, it didn't seem as if controlling the lump sum of malaise was easy.
But moving on from the purposes of trying to take the Boss cells for their own gains, the sight in front of me didn't exactly give much confidence to the claim that the people I would be visiting would also be alive.
My goal today was a lighthouse.
Of the remaining two people who I was tasked with finding among the four, these two lived together in a lighthouse.
Much like other Lighthouses, it was on the shoreside surrounded by an area of numerous sharp rocks fatal for a ship to wander into.
Something that the numerous ships impaled by the stones could attest to.
Wooden carcasses galore, their masts intertwined with each other like branches in a tree, their flags and sails torn apart in many places, fluttering weakly in the salty sea breeze.
If it was just that, I wouldn't be doubting their immediate survival.
But it wasn't just that.
Underneath the slowly dimming light of the sunset sun, the glow of the ships windows impaled upon spikes the size of buildings could be mistaken for light reflecting off of the glass.
But have you ever seen a sight where the light was being reflected off of glass from the other side of where the sun was setting?
Have you seen how those glowing glass portholes could blink?
At the least everything else on this seemingly god forsaken island remained normal looking save the destruction and numerous undead lying atop the destruction.
Here though, it was as if even the very land itself was infected with the malaise, coming alive and hoping to terrorize the living.
'Well maybe if they stay in the Lighthouse without venturing out, they may be alive, but I can't tell if they'll stay safe and die of boredom or they'll go risk it and have some fun'
It didn't hurt to check though.
'Who knows, they might be alive and not murdered by other folks trying to get the boss cell off of their hands.'
Especially since the Lighthouse standing atop the rocks wasn't as infected looking as the rest of the place surrounding it.
---
Walking through the Infested Ships was to put it nicely, not nice in the slightest.
To put it harshly, it was a living nightmare where everything was as infected as it looked, all filled with the same desire to turn your guts into a noodle that they could slurp on the go.
The wooden floorboards were rotten, exposing piles of bodies, both alive and dead.
In particular, there was a band of undead that roamed the rotted halls of the infested ships, claws holding onto giant bladed anchors as their small hooded and hunched over forms aimed to wreak as much havoc as they desired.
Which in many cases was aimed at me with highly aggressive intent and attempts.
All of which were repulsed with... relative ease.
Rolling my shoulder, I grimaced at the weight of the anchors which belied how easily they were carried and tossed around by the small blue crab shelled fellas.
But moving on from this particular brand of undead, to the similarly rotten wooden walls.
Once I was in the midst of trying to repulse an attempt to crush me underneath the weight of an anchor, it flew out behind me with much effort on my part and broke through the not so durable wood walls.
Unlike parts of the ship that weren't rotten and were able to stand against a slam of the anchor, the walls which had rotten revealed very hostile and very infected shrimp.
I don't think for the life of me, I've ever seen shrimp so... different as to become encrusted in a purple shell as neon blue spikes grew out of their backs.
In addition, when they locked their singular glowing blue eye on me, their numerous heavily lengthened blue encrusted purple shelled legs tensed and pulled back their bodies before attempting to slam themselves into me.
And seeing as how the anchor carrying undead I was previously fighting was now separated into two halves, the blue crystals on its back were a lot more durable than their crystalline structure first suggested.
'But a little trick in killing them instantly without having to break through their similarly hard purple shell, their brains were located just behind their singular eyeball.'
Just like anything else that was still living, or in this case, reanimated and mutated by the magic disease called the malaise, destroying the brain rendered the mutationee deader than they first were.
'Not that I know how it works on the skeletons though.'
Pursing my lips at the thought of having to separate a skull from their body to fully kill them despite having no brain to speak of, I shook my head of the thoughts of brains and instead moving to the task at hand.
Finding the owners living together in this lighthouse and asking them to attend the meeting so that they could get a handle on the Boss Cell situation.
'And well... Those rats certainly aren't helping things.'
Spotting the same rats I had seen in the extremely expansive sewer systems underneath the island, their glowing spines a testament of the infection coursing through their veins, I wondered what it was about birds for them to stay uninfected throughout all of this.
I mean, last I recalled I saw a bird slam into an invisible wall and possibly perish, and it wasn't infected
'Focus Slade, stop getting sidetracked.'
Shaking my head to get rid of the confusing thoughts, I looked at the Lighthouse above the water.
It was to put it bluntly, big
Well it had to be if the waves crashing against the rocks periodically but commonly swelled to five people tall.
Signs of weathering were commonplace near its base, the blocky bricks of stone having smoothed out against the relentless crashing of the waves that lapped against its shores.
In addition, barnacles big and small were clinging to the stones, opening their mouths in hoping to get a breath of fresh air before they devoured the salty nutrients in the sea.
A good portion of said barnacles were infected funnily enough, growing tentacles that were lopping the heads off of any undead unfortunate enough to wander near them
A simple experiment involving a thrown stone and a thrown zombie head showed that they had basic perceptive abilities able to distinguish between the inanimate and the animate
They weren't perceptive enough to distinguish that the head that I had thrown over was already dead courtesy of it being separated from the body, but just this much info was enough for me to weave through the lashings of their tentacles.
Starting it off by throwing numerous bits of rotten flesh and bone I had retrieved as loot from the corpses of the undead, the Barnacles turned into a blender as they struck at every bit of thrown flesh.
Weaving through the gaps made by such violent actions, I twisted and turned amongst the tentacles, bypassing their violent owners the barnacles, I found myself in front of the Lighthouse door.
It was made of wood.
Tossing a glance at the Barnacles that had grasped the torn bits of flesh on the ground and fed it into their tiny bone filled maws, I wondered if I was inadvertently feeding them before entering the lighthouse interior.
It was rather open as a brief glance upwards showed a world of intertwined pulley systems and stair wells heading past floor after floor after floor.
I wasn't entirely sure how many such floors were between me and the top floor, but if I used the impressive height of the Lighthouse as a reference, it was probably a couple dozen at the minimum
Four dozens to be exact.
Gaze moving downwards, my orange eyes landed on the rather cozy looking first floor with a crackling blue fire burning in a fireplace surrounded by makeshift carvings of a familiar visage.
A closer look at the carvings showed that they were direct replicas of the King that I had once seen sitting on a throne behind the Hand of the King stalwartly guarding them.
In addition to the rather intense depiction of the King being worshipped by miniature men in robes, rope ladders hung from the many platforms above, flanked by large bookshelves filled to the brim with books.
Blue flames crackling noisily, to my ears they sounded as if souls were screaming out in pain.
Something that I was going to just brush off as something as my own imagination conjured up by staying to long on this Infected Hell.
Anyways
Trailing my eyes along the rope ladders and stairs, they eventually dragged themselves to an open floor with banisters overlooking the ground floor.
And with it, I saw a feminine figure staring down at me with a faceless golden mask, elbows placed against the banisters as they tilted their heads at the sight of an unknown man intruding on their territory.
Cloaked in white cloth with a yellow goldish interior that allowed freedom of movement by exposing their lower body, black pauldrons hung on their shoulders as black cloth clung tightly to their figure, hugging them and hiding every single trace of skin on their bodies.
Golden bracers hanging against their hands, heavy set boots were placed atop their legs as they moved to an area without a banister stopping their way.
And with that movement, I was able to realize that there were two large and thick grey chains clinging to the golden bracers on their hand.
Tracing the path to where the other end of the chains were connected to, I found out that they were connected to two enormous spiked iron balls half her size in just its diameter.
Gulping down my trepidation at the sight of how easily they were able to handle the Two spiked iron balls the size of Yoga Ball.
Raising my hands to show no harm, I additionally retrieved a pair of signs that the Timekeeper and Messenger had given me, resembling a broken hourglass and a pile of snakes respectively.
"Uh... Calliope right?"
Her silent gaze bored into me.
"The Messenger and the Timekeeper told me about you."
Gesturing at the two pairs of spiked iron balls menacingly glinting under the blue light of the fire I continued "So can you put those pair of wrecking balls down before you hurt somebody called Slade?"
"I just want to talk"
"...What about?"
Staying silent for a brief moment before answering, the Servant named Calliope spoke quietly, her voice still filled with suspicion to the man who suddenly appeared claiming to represent the messenger and the timekeeper.
Smiling, I flicked my hand and revealed a boss cell, the one I had received from Dracula, and produced it to Calliope who tensed at the familiar sight.
"Well it has something to do with these little things and the fate of all our lives as we know it."
+++
Late chapter because of real world problems
Once they are solved I should get back to uploading daily
Tree