Chương 4: The Chapel

For several seconds, no one moved. The broad man held his broken length of bench as though the barghest might reassemble itself if he lowered it. The woman beside him kept the fire poker raised in both hands, but her attention had settled on the two bodies near the overturned display case. The armed man looked there as well. Whatever urgency had kept him moving through the fight seemed to drain from his posture. He crossed the room and crouched beside the nearest body, setting his pistol on the floor within reach.

The dead man's hands remained clenched against his chest, fingers dark with blood that would not disappear with the monsters. The armed man gently moved them aside.

"Corporal Clarke," he said, although no one had asked. He closed Clarke's eyes before moving to the other body. The second man had landed against the wall with his neck bent sharply to one side. The armed man corrected the position as much as he could, then sat back on his heels.

"Lieutenant Mercer." His hand remained on Mercer's shoulder.

"He wanted to come here," he said after a moment.

"First time any of us had been stationed this far north. He was obsessed with history." Thomas looked toward the ruined exhibition room. The visit had probably been Lieutenant Mercer's idea of a good afternoon: a castle, a short ways away from the barracks, and two friends who had agreed to tolerate the educational portion. The armed man closed Mercer's eyes as well. Then he picked up his pistol and stood.

"Name's Captain Vance." Chloe glanced at him.

"What's your first name?" He looked momentarily thrown off by the question.

"Marcus."

"Good. Captain Vance sounds like we're about to be arrested for damaging the exhibits." Marcus looked at the shattered cases, the blood, and the smoke still thinning near the ceiling.

"I think that can wait." The broad man finally lowered his makeshift club by several inches.

"Will Harland. This is Margaret, my wife." Margaret gave them a short nod without lowering the fire poker.

"We were in the next room when the shooting started. We heard something hit the door, so we blocked it."

"With half a bench?" Chloe asked. Will looked down at the length of timber in his hands.

"It was a whole bench when I started." While everyone's attention rested on him, Chloe edged toward the broken bench near the wall. Thomas watched her crouch, retrieve the core left by the barghest Marcus had killed earlier, and slide it into her pocket beside the first. Marcus saw her straighten. His gaze dropped briefly to her pocket, but he said nothing. Thomas couldn't tell whether that meant Chloe had succeeded or he had decided arguing over the weird magical stones was less urgent than safety.

Marcus looked over the group in turn.

"You two work here?" Thomas nodded.

"I'm an intern. History student."

"Visitor operations and maintenance," Chloe said.

"More maintenance now, apparently."

"You know the building?"

"Most of it," Thomas said.

"Some areas are staff-only, and parts of the keep are normally closed depending on access."

"The castle is old enough that 'most of it' may be all anyone knows," Chloe added.

"We clear one room at a time. No one goes through a doorway alone. No one leaves the group if they hear something. If you see movement, say where. Don't just shout 'over there' and expect anyone else to know what you mean." The instructions came quickly, but not hurriedly.

"Thomas, you stay behind me and slightly left. Keep the spear forward, but don't crowd me. If something comes down the corridor, you have the reach. Will, rear of the group. If something follows us, you hold it long enough for everyone else to turn around." Will adjusted his grip on the broken bench.

"Margaret and Chloe go to the centre. Chloe, you watch the lights and doors. Margaret, tell us if either side passage opens behind us." Margaret nodded. The instructions settled into Thomas's mind with unusual clarity. He could picture the formation before they even moved: Marcus at the front, Thomas controlling the space behind him, the others protected between them, Will holding the rear. It was not complicated, but the arrangement felt fixed in a way ordinary spoken directions rarely did.

Marcus noticed Thomas watching him.

"What, kid?"

"Nothing." Thomas hesitated.

"What class did you choose?" Marcus glanced down the corridor.

"Battle Captain."

"What does it do?" Chloe asked.

"I think it's supposed to help me in a fight. Positions. Threats. Gives me ways to direct people." Marcus checked the nearest doorway.

"I don't know the limits yet."

"Your directions felt different. It was like I understood where you wanted everyone before you finished explaining it." Marcus turned back to look at him, the implications of the class sinking in.

"I guess that could be part of it." Chloe looked interested enough to begin an interrogation, but Marcus prevented it by asking, "What can the rest of you do?" Thomas picked up the spear.

"I am a Historical Summoner; I can form a bond with objects that have a historical meaning and call up an echo. This is the only one that I have."

"Anything else?"

"Study." All of them held their breath while Marcus kept his eyes fixed on Thomas, looking at him in the calm, demanding way that a man who had no patience for unnecessary remarks would. Although it was a bit intimidating, Thomas did value the clarity. Marcus was indifferent to background information or academic qualifications; what mattered to him was a person's range, their damage, and their trustworthiness.

By treating Thomas as if he were a deputy, Marcus was being rather intimidating, but it was a lot better than seeing him treated like cargo.

"I haven't been able to try it."

"Fair," Marcus said simply, and the pressure seemed to fall away from the room.

"Improvised Artificer," Chloe said.

"I can understand devices, modify them, and insulate myself from mana while I'm working." Marcus turned to Will.

"Homestead Defender," Will said. The name sounded strange in his broad Yorkshire accent, as though he had read it from an official notice and still did not entirely trust it.

"Makes me harder to move if I'm standing between danger and someone I'm protecting. Thinkin' it gives me a bit more strength with whatever I've got in my hands." He lifted the broken bench. Thomas could see how the system had arrived at the class: Will had heard gunshots, armed himself with a piece of furniture, and rushed toward the danger because Margaret was behind him. Marcus nodded toward her.

"Homesteader," Margaret said.

"Food storage. Keeping track of supplies. Making things last. There was something about organising a household." Chloe considered that.

"That may be the most useful class here."

"It did not feel especially heroic when it appeared."

"Heroism is overrated," Thomas said.

"Food is generally well reviewed." Margaret's mouth moved toward a smile before the sight of the bodies stopped it. Marcus gave the room one final inspection.

"We're moving." He had taken a compact torch from Clarke's jacket, a spare magazine from Mercer, and then held the light beneath his pistol. Thomas moved into position behind him. They passed through the outer sections of the keep, using the walls to guide them inward. Dark and cramped, they felt like what it might have been hundreds of years ago. The hallway was littered with doors, each one an opportunity for ambush. Marcus stopped beside the first one and raised a closed fist. Everyone halted.

He leaned just far enough to let the light beam cross the interior.

"Thomas, what's in here?"

"Storage alcove behind the partitions on the right," Thomas whispered back. Marcus shifted the light throughout the room, finding nothing. He entered. Thomas followed, spear angled toward the far corner. Chloe and Margaret moved behind them while Will remained in the doorway, watching the corridor. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it At each doorway, Marcus asked Thomas or Chloe about the layout.

Thomas described what should have been beyond it and then Marcus checked. A staff office had been torn open from the inside, its desk overturned and papers scattered across the floor. The small room beyond it was empty except for a dark stain and a dropped radio. Chloe snuck over to inspect the radio. The casing was warm to the touch, even though it was turned off.

"Dead. Not just the battery. It's like something inside has been corroded."

"Can you repair it?" Marcus asked.

"Not without parts. Possibly not even with them. I think something is targeting the circuit boards." Farther along, they found a visitor crouched behind a display panel. Thomas saw the shoes first and almost called out before the torch revealed the rest. The man had been struck across the back and neck. There was enough blood to make his state obvious, even before Marcus checked for a pulse. Marcus closed the dead man's eyes and moved on.

The moment brought a ball of dread to Thomas's stomach, and he tried not to count the dead as the spear grew heavier with each room. Not physically, the summoned weapon still rested comfortably in his improved grip. The strain came from the connection beneath his sternum, where Summon Echo continued drawing on this new internal reserve of his. It had begun as a faint pull like he was holding his breath too long. Still, he kept the spear active. Nothing else they carried could reliably stop another barghest.

They crossed into the keep through a passage where the electric lights had failed. Marcus's torch and Thomas's spear became the only illumination, white and gold moving over stone walls that had stood for several centuries. The keep felt different from the visitor centre. The modern fittings were thinner here, allowing the keep to show off its age and weight. Stone enclosed them on every side. Their footsteps returned in faint echoes in the otherwise unnerving silence. Will looked back every few steps.

Margaret reached out once and touched his arm, holding him steady. Marcus cleared the lower space, then led them toward the Great Chamber. The stairs narrowed the formation to single file. Marcus went first. Thomas followed with the spear angled awkwardly above his shoulder, trying not to blind himself on its glow or stab the man in front of him. Halfway up, Marcus stopped, and Thomas nearly walked into him. A noise had come from above. The sound of wood shifting against stone, followed by a muffled voice.

He recognised the voice, and the reassurance that the director was still alive rocked him back on his heels. Marcus raised his pistol as Thomas straightened back up.

"Who's there?" Marcus called. Thomas leaned slightly past him.

"Mrs Shaw?" Something moved above, and a woman answered.

"Thomas?" The relief in her voice made his chest ache.

"Yes, it's us."

"Are they gone?"

"We've killed three, but we don't know if there are more." The answer produced a heavy silence. Then something heavy scraped across the floor above. Marcus continued up cautiously. Thomas followed him into the Great Chamber, where a narrow entrance to the chapel chamber had been blocked with two chairs, a low cabinet, and part of a display frame. The barricade shifted inward, and Eleanor Shaw appeared in the gap. The site manager looked somehow smaller than this morning.

Her normally immaculate clothing was dusted, and a cut ran along one side of her forehead. She held a short metal pole taken from a barrier stand in both hands. Behind her stood Amy Bell, one of the visitor assistants. Amy's face was pale. Blood covered the front of her staff polo, but Thomas quickly realised most of it was not hers. Her hands glowed faintly with a soft white light that faded as she lowered them. Eleanor's control lasted until she recognised Chloe.

Then she crossed the space between them and caught Chloe by both shoulders.

"Where were you?"

"Basement corridor, then the visitor centre."

"Gareth went looking for you." Chloe's expression changed.

"What? When?"

"After the first scream. The lights failed, and you didn't answer your radio." The sentence settled heavily among them. Thomas looked up to the older staff members. He and Chloe had been working at the castle for three weeks now, and they had quickly taken them under their wing. Eleanor released Chloe and looked toward him.

"Daniel went with him." Daniel Price, the other visitor assistant. Neither had returned.

"We haven't seen them," Thomas said. Eleanor's jaw tightened. She nodded once, as though recording the information rather than reacting to it.

"There may be more people in the eastern rooms and above the Great Chamber. We need to keep searching." Marcus examined the chapel chamber before answering. It was not large, but it had thick walls, one main entrance, and little furniture beyond what Eleanor had already used to barricade it. The space had clearly been selected for its defensibility rather than comfort.

"Who else is here?" Marcus asked.

"Only me and Amy," Eleanor said.

"You cleared this area?"

"We ran here and barricaded ourselves in." Eleanor hesitated, her hand lingering on the doorframe as her gaze drifted toward the dark back corner of the room.

"We tried saving one of the visitors from the gallery..." She looked over at Amy. The silence between them was brief. They shared a dark, grim glance without a word. Amy's jaw tightened, giving a single, sad shake of her head. They hadn't made it. Her eyes swept over the group before locking onto Thomas.

"You're bleeding." Thomas looked down at his torn jacket. The cut along his side had soaked through more fabric than he had realised, and a small wave of dizziness followed. I noticed."

"Sit down."

"We still need to—""Sit." The command lacked Marcus's supernatural authority, but Amy had spent enough time dealing with injured visitors to produce her own form of intimidation. Thomas lowered himself onto a stone ledge along the wall. The moment he stopped moving, every injury he had collected demanded separate recognition. His shoulder throbbed. His side burned. The cut along his cheek stung with each change in expression, and his hands felt as though he had spent an afternoon pulling rope without gloves.

Amy crouched beside him and examined the wound through the torn fabric.

"My class is Healer," she said.

"Before anyone gets excited, it's not as impressive as it sounds."

"What can you do?" Chloe asked.

"The same things I could mostly do before. Stop bleeding. Clean wounds. Close shallow cuts. Manage pain." Amy placed one hand beside the claw mark.

"Just faster." White light gathered beneath her palm. Thomas expected warmth. Instead, it felt cool and faintly numb. The bleeding slowed. Dirt and fragments of fabric lifted from the cut in tiny dark threads before crumbling away. The edges drew closer together, not vanishing, but tightening enough that the wound no longer pulled open when he breathed. The entire process took perhaps twenty seconds. Amy sat back, looking more tired than the effort seemed to justify.

"That is all I can do. It still needs proper dressing. If anything inside was damaged, I can't fix it."

"It feels better."

"That's not the same as being better. You need to recover." Amy checked Thomas's cheek next, then his palms. She could reduce the bleeding and clean the cuts, but she couldn't perform a miracle. When she finished, the injuries remained; they simply looked as though someone competent had treated them. Marcus allowed her to examine the cut above his eye.

"No concussion symptoms?" she asked.

"No."

"Headache?"

"Yes."

"Dizziness?"

"No."

"Nausea?"

"No."

"Do you always answer medical questions as though someone is timing you?"

"Yes." Amy looked toward Chloe.

"Is he serious?"

"Unfortunately, it appears that way." Eleanor had remained near the chapel entrance throughout the treatment, her attention kept returning to the passage outside.

"We need to search for Gareth and Daniel." Marcus reloaded his pistol with a second magazine taken from Mercer—which Thomas suspected might be the last one available.

"We'll check the adjoining rooms and the upper access. Then we come back here."

"That's not enough."

"It's what we can do now."

"They may be injured."

"We already are. It is not safe to walk around in this current situation." Eleanor's grip tightened around the metal pole.

"I'm responsible for them." Marcus looked toward Mercer and Clarke, although the stone walls hid the exhibition room from view.

"I understand that, but you're also responsible for the ones still here." The answer quieted Eleanor more effectively than an argument would have. Marcus gave them five minutes before moving again. Amy checked Will and Margaret for injuries. Will had bruised one forearm while breaking the bench apart. Margaret had cut her palm on the fire poker's decorative edge and had apparently not noticed. Amy cleaned and closed it while Margaret explained that her class had given her a clearer sense of the available supplies.

"There are two emergency water containers in a staff cupboard below," Margaret said. Eleanor looked at her sharply.

"There are?"

"I didn't know that before. I just have this magical sense now, like I can feel where useful household stores are if they're nearby and part of a place people are using as shelter." Chloe's eyes brightened.

"That is extremely useful." Margaret sighed.

"You already said that."

"It remains true!" Eleanor shared her own class next, though only after Marcus asked." Estate Steward. I can take stock of supplies, organise work, and understand the condition of a place under my care." Thomas looked around the chapel chamber.

"Is that why you chose this room?"

"No. I chose it because it has one entrance and thick walls." Eleanor paused.

"The class did confirm it was sensible, though it was an odd sensation." Their second sweep took them through the remaining sections of the Great Chamber and toward the upper access. Eleanor came with them despite Marcus's obvious preference that she remain in the chapel. Amy stayed behind with Margaret, who began searching the nearby storage spaces for anything else useful. The group moved more slowly now. Marcus's directions remained precise, but fatigue had begun to roughen their edges.

Will's breathing grew louder on the stairs. Chloe had no torch and stayed close to Thomas's golden light. Eleanor repeatedly tried to move forward whenever they reached a doorway she associated with one of her missing staff members. Each time, Marcus stopped her. They found signs of movement but no people. Near the upper passage lay a dropped set of keys. Farther along, a smear of blood stained the wall, ending abruptly before the next doorway.

Gareth's green work jacket hung from a damaged hinge, torn along one sleeve but empty. Eleanor held it for several seconds before folding it over one arm. Though Thomas wanted to reassure her that the jacket didn't mean Gareth was dead, the blood on the wall made the words feel like a lie. Together, they checked the last accessible room. Empty. Marcus stood in the doorway, looking over the group. Thomas could tell the decision had already been made.

"We're done for now." Eleanor turned toward him.

"There are still rooms above us."

"We'll search for them after we rest."

"Gareth and Daniel could be lying up there. We can't stop."

"We can, because we are going to." Eleanor stepped closer to Marcus. She was shorter than he was and visibly exhausted, but for the first time since they had found her, she looked like the woman who managed the castle rather than someone who had hidden behind a barricade.

"You don't have the authority to decide that."

"No," Marcus said.

"But I have the ammunition, the training, and the only class here designed to coordinate a fight." Thomas expected Eleanor to object, but Marcus continued before she could.

"Thomas is bleeding and has been keeping that spear active since we left the visitor centre. Chloe destroyed the only torch she had. Will has never cleared a building in his life. You're shaking badly enough that I can see it from here." Eleanor looked down at her hands. The metal pole trembled between them.

"If we keep going now," Marcus said, quieter, "someone falls on those stairs, walks into a room alone, or misses something in the dark. Then we have more injured people and fewer able to search."

"At most an hour," Eleanor said.

"At least an hour," Marcus countered.

"We dress wounds. Count ammunition. Find more light. Water if we can. Then, we plan the next sweep." Eleanor looked toward the stairway leading farther into the keep. Thomas understood her expression. Stopping felt too much like abandoning the missing people. Resting while someone might be bleeding nearby felt immoral in a way that continuing until they collapsed did not. He also knew his arms were shaking. The group returned to the chapel chamber.

Margaret had found the emergency water and arranged what little food had been stored nearby into separate piles. Amy had pulled the chairs back into position near the entrance, ready to restore the barricade once everyone was inside. Marcus entered last. He checked the corridor one final time before helping Will move the cabinet back across the doorway. Eleanor remained standing. She placed Gareth's torn jacket beside the wall and looked at it as though it were a promise she intended to keep.

Thomas sat on the stone ledge where Amy had treated him. Only then did he release Summon Echo. The spear folded into golden light and streamed back toward him. As soon as it vanished, the pressure beneath his sternum disappeared with it. Exhaustion rushed into the space it left behind. Thomas leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and concentrated on remaining upright. Across the chapel chamber, Marcus sat beneath the narrow window with his pistol resting across one thigh.

His eyes closed for only a moment before opening again. Eleanor watched the blocked entrance. No one looked like they were resting, but for the next hour, no one went back into the dark.