Sylvester & Tuette: Cursed Doubt

Chapter Twenty--Nine

The attack had been, above all things, unexpected. But Roost was prepared.


Arriving at the foyer to his own residence, he had immediately gone up the stairs to investigate the cause for the light source. He had passed through the juvenile World Spirit’s domain with surprising ease and came across the Gousherall that had claimed responsibility for the flame. Puze was also buzzing around the area and the Guard was beginning to panic about letting the fly land on him: he had apparently suffered a few teleportations and wished to experience no more.


But the Gousherall – who claimed to be named Sylvester and insisted on being called Vest – said that he wanted the king to die. The count knew that the monarchial Sylvester could not be allowed to die so easily; not before giving up the kingstone.


The old man far below with his damning Mylup’s came to mind and Count Roost suddenly realized that the heavy door off from the foyer had been open. What if this menial Guard has gone belowground first, or murdered King Sylvester and stowed the body down there? The thought seemed to enrage him to the point of wanting to do battle with the older, contemptuously bearded man.


So Roost extended his pikes, hoping that by killing the man, he was only feeding a primal urge for bloodshed and not being proactive in any form of vengeance on behalf of his estranged father and his accursed life and quest. The fight was quick to start, thanks to the count’s rage, but was prolonged due to both combatants being well skilled with their weapons of choice. Unfortunately for Roost, the room he had found the Guard within also held an antiquated but adequate sword which Vest had been just as quick to pick up. Roost never had the chance to ask where the man’s own sword was.


The fight took them down the single flight of stairs as intentioned by Roost; he wanted to get to the infirmary as quickly as possible. Plus, it was easy to herd Vest where Roost wanted him and easier to fight still while his opponent was having to navigate an unfamiliar stairwell. Once in the foyer, Vest was adamant to press any kind of advantage that the heft of his short sword might have over Roost’s oft-used VoiRen pikes.


The clash was over in a matter of minutes, even with Roost’s attention half-heralded towards the descending stairs. Just a quick series of parries and feints was what it took to finally end the clattering brought on by the weapons. When Vest was on his back and the pikes finally withdrawn, Roost rushed to the doorway, feeling his face heat up with inquiry. What will I find down there?


As if by coincidence, once he reached the precipice of the dank stairwell, he stopped short to see a man only a few steps below. A bearded man bearing one-time opulent but now quite dingy clothing; the makings of a wealthy man who traveled very little but very recently. His hair was disheveled as if he didn’t know how to manage it by himself and with the fading sunlight bleeding around the count and lighting up the man’s face, Roost saw only a frightened child’s face on a full-grown adult’s body. Roost began to smile widely at the circumstance for he knew he was facing the man he had been waiting for.


This rumpled looking man was the nation’s leader.


King kriffing Sylvester.


This is going to be easier than I thought. But the moment was cut short when the massive front door was opened, sounding loud and intrusive in the wakeful silence that a quick death has been known to instill. The noise drew from Roost the urge to silence the intruder and he rushed to do just that. Catching the stocky man off-guard, Roost was able to easily pierce his chest though he couldn’t be sure how much; there was some kind of resistance. A generic and failed Protection Spell, obviously.


When he turned, a womanly shriek pervaded the silence once more but Roost was certainly more surprised than angry. Turning, he saw a sight that had been doubly-unexpected: behind the degenerative king was a woman bearing her own kind of degenerations.


The apprentice that had started it all: Tuette.


A flood of confusing emotions threatened to take Roost over, and it was a frozen second before he realized why. Tuette had been the first apprentice he had intentionally Cursed, but that had also been his last tie to the life he led under his Corunny Voidet persona.


It’s not some persona but my true identity, he said to himself in a shameful tone. The others had suffered virulent Cursing but Tuette had escaped with a kind of “slap on the neck”. She obviously doesn’t see it that way if she’s here with him. And if they intend to kill me... He decided to chance it and he called out her name. In turn, she said his name.


His real name.


Though Tuette just called him Corunny, he swore that he would only respond to his new identity. As long as I look like a count, I am Count Roost. But using his true name served to actually invite a further kind of anger or even despair inside the count. No, I’m not a count or any kind of governor. I stole this title from someone.


But some might argue that this king did too.


The king seemed perplexed at first but in a few seconds of revelatory silence that philosophers might prefer, Sylvester caught up and did the most unexpected thing: he took up Vest’s fallen weapon, though not without falling first. Once he regained his balance, he came at Roost with surprising speed.


Vest had been practiced with his strikes and therefore predictable. Sylvester carried no such skill or obviousness, and Roost didn’t like that. It meant that the king might make a glancing blow. Can’t have that. With wide strokes that befitted the shorter sword, Sylvester’s method of fighting was drawing all of Roost’s attention.


He didn’t mind because come nightfall, the Curse would take effect and change Decennia for the better. That or he would finally have the kingstone. Recalling his purpose, Roost remembered that he wasn’t aiming to kill Sylvester anyway, just retrieve the kingstone and start the much easier task of acquiring the Godblade for Coge Voidet, far below.


Below, where the king and my first failed apprentice have been.


He felt a distraction nag at his mind, a flailing thought that was attempting to materialize while Sylvester huffed out each swing. Have they done something to… my father? He couldn’t help but wonder and with wondering, he knew his attention would be divided between keeping the king at bay and rushing down into the dungeon to check on his father’s debilitating state. Roost knew that if Coge Voidet died, then his personal mission would all have been for nothing.


I don’t need the Godblade. He does. And I need the kingstone to get it from those thieving mongrels in Gor Pyron.


Count Roost finally realized that even if he didn’t believe in the existence of the purported blade, his father did. And he also realized that his patriarch was most likely in his final days anyway, and he wanted to be thought of as a son that fought for his father, even after he had abandoned the family business, name, and legacy


With this shift in priority, he felt more confident in his prolonged – and unnecessary – battle with the king.