Burning Chains

Chapter 7

Patches was careful these days. Even more careful than he was used to being. He had reached the point of his life, as he had in every life so far, that he had to shave his head and eyebrows to avoid being recognized. It was a familiar practice to him now thanks to the thousands of years worth memories of shaving his head buffeting his teenage mind. In the hanger before sortie, razor held clumsily in his thick pilot’s gloves, off in a corner of the nexus, hoping no one barged in on him as he struggled to figure out how to use a straight razor, more confidently in the relative privacy of the giants’ catacombs, and then hesitantly once again as he held the blade with a spider’s legs. It was certainly easier to do it now that he had hands again, but he had never expected to have to do it so young. Well it was better than getting caught.

That was the one thing he was better than anyone else he’d ever known across his many many lives, getting the hell out of a bad situation before he got caught. Sure he wasn’t well regarded, he was certainly never called “honorable Patches”, but at least he was still alive. That was probably more than he could say for his companion.

That was really the best way he could put his relationship with Garreth. They’d met before, several times in fact, sometimes as enemies, other times as begrudging allies and on rare occasions, even friends. He couldn’t say they were just friends and they definitely weren’t lovers, but Patches didn’t really know a word for what they were. There wasn’t really a word for “guy you’ve known for thousands of years across different worlds who doesn’t remember any of it”. That was probably for the best. Knowing Gareth, he probably would’ve tried to build an Armored Core out of windmills if he remembered anything about that particular iteration. Then again, Patches had never been in trouble with a god before, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. The technology wasn’t exactly there yet in the Lands Between, but maybe if he found a team of sorcerers mad enough… He knew from experience gods could die, he was sure a few dozen missiles would work well enough.

He ran a hand over his bald head in frustration. That would never work. He wasn’t clever or charismatic enough. What he really needed was a gun. He would have even taken the annoyingly fiddly pistol he carried as a student in Yharnam, but once again the technology just wasn’t there yet. There wouldn’t be a firearm smaller than a cannon around here for at least another hundred years by his estimate. Patches was confident in his ability to run and hide, but he wasn’t that confident. He was also reasonably sure he would be too old to even hold a gun if he managed to live that long. The only thing he had at his advantage was his hundreds of years of experience with a spear and shield, and even then experience was all he had. He’d never had any real talent for it. Hopefully the disguise would be enough to get anyone that came looking for him off his trail.

After seeing Gareth get dragged from the shack he’d holed up in by Godfrey’s personal guard, Patches had decided it was best for him to leave town as soon as possible. For the moment he was holed up in an abandoned sorcerer’s tower just outside his home village. It was hidden, only visible from the distance of through heavy fog unless you found the seals anchoring the illusion. Gareth had figured out how to get in when they were kids and it had become a secret hideout of sorts for them. It was as good a place as any to prepare for the ritual of shedding the boy he’d been allowed to live as for a time to go back to being Patches.

He was halfway through his left eyebrow when he heard noise at the base of the tower. He reached for his spear, stolen years ago from the town guard. It sounded like there was more than one person down there, the two, no three of them were speaking quietly with each other. As he pulled his spear closer the shaft caught on the edge of his shield, sending it clattering to the floor. He winced at the loud noise, the conversation happening down below quieted.

“That better be you, Patches. If it’s not, clear out before I come up with something to do to you.”

“Gareth, is that you, mate?”

“Who else would it be, Queen Marika?” Now that Patches thought of it that was actually plausible wasn’t it. She was known to disguise herself.

“Prove it.”

“Oh come on Patches, you know it’s me. Would you get down here already?”

“I don’t know it’s you! You should be dead! Or in prison! I’m a wily bastard and not even I could’ve escaped the capital in a week!”

“You have a circular birthmark on your chest. The first time I asked you about it you said it was a memory of a curse. When I pointed out I had one just like it, you looked at me funny, but you didn’t say anything.”

The Dark Sign. They both still had the mark imprinted on them, harmless now that they were away from Lodran and its dying flames.

“What’s a Dark Sign?” Gareth called from down stairs.

Patches didn’t say that out loud. That wasn’t Gareth. He grabbed his shield.

“Shit! Fuck! Sorry! I’ve gotta stop doing that.”

The thing that was not Gareth started climbing up the ladder and Patches backed himself into a corner, crouching behind his still-probably-too-big tower shield for his last stand. The thing that was not Gareth certainly looked like him, though he moved unnaturally, turning his head to look at Patches despite the blindfold covering his eyes.

“Come on, Patches, it’s me.”

Still Patches stared at the blindfold.

“Don’t, uh, don’t worry about that.”

Patches raised his spear.

“Hey, hey, hey, you don’t need to do that!”

Gareth quickly backed up.

“Look, what will it take for me to convince you?”

“Take the blindfold off.”

“I really don’t think you want me to do that.”

“Take it off.”

The thing that may have been Gareth, but certainly wasn’t anymore, hesitated with his hands behind his head. Patches felt like he was being scrutinized even through the cloth. Then Garreth untied the blindfold revealing the hollow, flame filled holes that had become his eyes. Burns ringed the empty sockets as it tried to encroach further and further onto his face. Wasn’t the worst state Patches had ever seen him in. That had to be the time he’d crawled out of Blighttown with his nose rotted off from decay and poison, but this Patches wasn’t supposed to know about that so instead he winced, pretending to recoil at the smell of burning flesh.

“That’s a right mess, that is.”

The longer he looked at those eyes the more he felt a familiar itch in the back of his mind. It reminded him of Yharnam. Of the god that had torn his mind to shreds there.

“It certainly isn’t pretty.” Garreth shot him a pained grimace.

Alright, now Patches could believe it was him. Those mannerisms had imprinted themselves upon his mind like they were his own. He prided himself on his ability to imitate those around him, maybe next go he’d try to be an actor, but even he wasn’t good enough to fool himself when it came to Gareth.

“What in blazes happened to you?”

“Well first off of it turns out I wasn’t arrested for arson.”

“I already knew that! They don’t send the Royal guard for common murderers.” Patches laughed. Gareth just stood there looking sheepish. “You need to work on that gullibility. It’s going to get you in trouble one of these days.”

“So I got him.” Gareth’s shoulders relaxed, the tension that had taken hold the day his parents told him they were marrying him off finally left him.

“You got him, mate.” Patches paused for a second. “How come you never told me you could use magic?”

“I wasn’t sure it was safe. If the wrong person found out I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself. It was better that if I got caught, people assumed I had only just realized what I could do myself. Now though,”

He let flame dance along the top of his hand before turning it over and extinguishing it in his palm.

“I don’t need to worry as much.”

“So you’ve become a cleric then, you think that’ll protect you when Marika breaks down your door again?”

“Don’t worry I’m not that stupid. Some novice priest wouldn’t stand a chance against a god. Good thing I’m not just a cleric.”

“I feel like I’m going to regret asking but-“

“God of chaos and madness. That’s what I am, or I guess what I’ve always been. This shit gives me a headache if I think about it for too long. Whatever it is, I’m not that easy to kill anymore.”

He knelt down on the floor in front of Patches, reached out his hand and then stopped, seeming to think better of it, as if Patches was a frightened animal.

“Don’t do that.”

Patches stood up, setting his shield and spear aside.

“What, you become a god and all of a sudden you think I need coddling?”

This wasn’t the first time his companion had become a god, probably wouldn’t be the last either. As insane as it would have been for Patches the pilot, Patches the eternal wanderer had half come to expect it. Garreth smiled.

“Guess not.”

“Can’t scare me that easily, old friend.”

Patches clapped his hand on the other boy’s shoulder.

“Patches?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you bald?”

“I’m leaving town. It’s only a matter of time before they come after me now. Thought I would be harder to recognize like this.”

“You know me and my fiancé found a place to live if you’d want to join us. It’s well hidden and pretty damn hard to get to.”

Patches had only ever lived alone, clawing out an existence for himself with his own hands. That was always how he’d done things. No one could leave him if he was alone, no one could betray him if he was the betrayer. However, this life had softened his hands. His companion had always been there for him this time, ready with a smile or a rock to be thrown depending on the situation.

“It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

Part of what Gareth had said suddenly hit him.

“Fiancé? You’ve been a free man for only a few days and you’re already trying to tie yourself down again?”

A stupid expression came over his face, one Patches hadn’t seen in this life. It was a face he’d come to associate with names like Anri, Eileen, and Solaire.

“It’s strange.”

Gareth ran a hand through his hair.

“It’s difficult to explain, but I’ve only just met him and yet I’ve known him his whole life. I’m feeling at the same time for him, the love that comes with deep understanding and the love that comes at first sight. It’s maddening, but at the same time it’s wonderful. I feel everything at extremes of intensity now, like every pain is the worst I’ve ever felt and every joy is the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ve never loved someone like this, but I don’t think I could’ve loved someone like this before. At the same time I also don’t think I could love anyone else like this if I tried.”

It may have been a trick of the light, but Patches could swear the flame that had replaced his eyes burned a little brighter as he spoke.

“He’s down stairs if you’d like to meet him.”

As Patches headed down the ladder to the ground floor he suddenly began to hear the sound of arguing. The closer he got the more clearly he could make out words. The first voice, on the higher end but rough and growling, yelling, “Take it off!” The second, deeper and warmer but far more brittle, returning “‘Tis for your own good!”

When Patches reached the base of the ladder he saw the pair in the midst of a fight. The growling voice belonged to a young man, much taller than he was, with intense golden eyes and luxuriously curling dark hair. There was something almost familiar about his face. His high cheekbones and strong nose reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t place who. The source of the second voice was shorter, not than Patches, he still towered over Patches, but he was shorter than the other boy, who had grabbed him by the collar of his cloak and was shaking him. He was somewhat dour looking with long, limp, white hair and a teenager’s attempt at a beard embarrassing the rest of his face. His face was also somewhat familiar, though his was rougher, Patches might’ve even said it was the face of a warrior if he was not limply letting himself be shaken. Based on their behavior and how oddly similar they looked, Patches figured they must’ve been brothers.

The second Gareth reached the base of the ladder the taller one’s head whipped towards him.

“Gareth! Tell Morgott to remove this ridiculous veil!”

“You are the one who is being ridiculous!” The shorter one protested. “I am doing you a favor and you know it!”

“Morgott, if you’re more comfortable veiled that’s fine, but you shouldn’t just put one on Mohg if he doesn’t want one and, Mohg, he can’t take it off you if you’re shaking him like that.”

The taller one, Mohg, grumbled as he put the shorter one, Morgott, down. Morgott leered, inexplicably, at Patches.

“He’s a good guy deep down. You won’t be a dick head, right Patches?”

“Not a dick head bone in my body,” Patches lied.

Most of his skeleton was made up of dick head bones, but when his companion looked at him with so much seriousness, he knew to keep himself in check. Morgott’s eyes narrowed, but he touched his brother’s shoulder once and then stepped back. The edges of his body turned gold and then dissolved, his skin graying and locks of his dark hair hardening into ram-like horns.

Patches took a step back in shock before catching himself. Morgott did not strike him as someone his companion would fall in love with. He was far too gloomy. So that meant this terrifying giant was the one Garreth had fallen in love with. Morgott stared at him with grim expectation, as if waiting for him to scream. Something about that expectancy aggravated him. Morgott thought he was that much of a coward? Well he was, but Patches was offended he’d thought so without trying to get to know him better. If this world had lockers it would’ve given him the urge to shove Morgott into one.

Instead, to both his and Morgott’s surprise, Patches extended his hand.

“So you’re the unlucky fellow who’s agreed to marry this idiot. I’m Patches. Keeping Gareth out of jail used to be my job, though I suppose since I was such a miserable failure, that ought to be your job now right?”

Before accepting his hand Mohg shot his brother a self-satisfied grin, or in the language of brothers, “I told you so.”

“I am Mohg, second son of Queen Marika and Lord Godfrey the Golden. The sullen one is my lord brother, Morgott, rightful First Prince.”

The shorter one flinched at the introduction but did not dispute it.

“Considering my dear betrothed’s recklessness, I imagine you did an admirable job.”

Mohg shook his hand firmly, Morgott still watching him with scrutiny.

They decided it would be best to wait out the night in the tower before they began the journey to the place Gareth had spoken of. Apparently the nearest accessible entrance was all the way in Limgrave, a dangerously long journey for them all to make in the darkness. Gareth may have been a god now, but he was a new god, not yet fully aware of his capabilities, so there was no guarantee he’d be able to keep anyone other than himself safe if they were attacked. All sorts of things roamed the night after all, death birds, patrolling soldiers, there were even rumors of a rogue knight running around murdering merchants. Things Patches was all too happy to avoid if possible.

Garreth and Mohg slept together in one corner of the room, Mohg leaning against the wall and Gareth lying haphazardly on top of him. His eyes weren’t closed, his eyelids had at this point burned completely away, but his chest rose and fell slowly in the motions of sleep. Morgott had insisted on being left alone on the second floor. Likely so that he had the chance to remove his own veil in privacy. Patches as usual, had difficulty sleeping. He’d convinced himself that it wasn’t the nightmares and was in fact the light of the giant bleeding tree that shined even at night that was keeping him up, even though he’d long since gotten used to it. For a while he just sat in the tower wide awake, but watching Gareth sleep so comfortably in the arms of his beloved made him want to take a walk.

It was a nice night, though they were always comfortable in the Lands Between. Nights were cool and dry, contrasting with the warm days of Marika’s endless summer. The fireflies Patches had come to associate with the early months of the season were ever present, but he found he’d come to miss the sound of crickets that would come in late summer and early early fall. Meanwhile, he no longer even heard the endless drone of cicadas. Their omnipresent shrieking fading entirely into the background. Patches wasn’t the poetic type. He wasn’t one to write odes on the changing of seasons like some wannabe warrior poets he’d met over the years, but it was impossible not to notice just how stagnant this world was. He’d lived in dying stagnant worlds before, but at least those worlds died. They changed and heaved as they convulsed with their death throes and bursted as they rotted. This was another thing altogether.

This world was alive but hideously so. It was a corpse that could never truly live, but was kept entirely from rotting. Patches wondered how no one else could see it, how the endless sowing without harvest didn’t drive people mad. Maybe it was just because he had perspective. Gareth had never experienced a world without summer. He didn’t miss hot mulled cider, or the quiet that came with deep snow, or the first crocuses pushing their way from the ground because he’d never known them. He wasn’t capable of missing them. Sorcerers born in the days to come would not know to miss the movements of the stars. These would be memories only carried forward by the old, burnishing and wearing down as they became ever distant, and of course by Patches whether he shared them with anyone or not.

He squatted down beneath one of the unnaturally evergreen trees near the base of the tower. He carried the burden of so many dead worlds, and he could not say it was a burden he’d carried well. What was the point right? When everything is dying what is the point of grace or chivalry? What is the point of prophesying doom when every ear is willfully deaf? When your own memories are so spread across time and space and age and setting, what fool would ever believe you if you tried to relate them. He’d tried once or twice, desperate for acknowledgement and kinship, or at other times, merely drunk out of his mind, but the most he’d ever gotten out of those lapses in judgment was a scalpel in his brain. He half wished he could’ve survived long enough in that particular dead world to read the paper that had resulted from his dissection. Maybe it would’ve told him something about what continued to happen to him.

Suddenly Patches felt eyes on him. He didn’t react right away, instead he slowly scanned the tree line as if his eyes were merely wandering. Then his eyes met a pair of sullen golden ones, staring at him through lank white hair.

“What brings you out so late, your highness?”

The Prince immediately ducked further into the canopy above Patches, hiding himself.

“I could ask thee the same.” He replied pointedly from his hiding place.

Morgott wasn’t hiding because he thought Patches wouldn’t notice him then, it was because he didn’t want Patches to see him.

“Thyself and I are yet unfamiliar with each other, but you strike me as one who is not to be fully trusted.”

“I do?” He asked with mock insultedness.

“Thou art a skilled liar, I shall afford thee that.”

“You think I’ve lied to you? Oh pray tell.”

“Thy facade in its entirety is a lie. Thou art not an idiot no matter how well thou wearest the mask of one. I see the way thou carry thyself, thy manner is that of an old warrior not a teenage delinquent.”

“Not entirely sure what you’re trying to insinuate there your highness.”

“Who dost thou answer to and who art thou beneath thy guise?”

“I answer to no one and I’m no one but myself.”

“Perhaps I have not made myself clear enough.”

There was a rustle of branches and a massive dark shape dropped from the tree line. Morgott was lankier than his more solidly built brother, but that did not mean he looked weak. His arms were corded with lean cable like muscle and he landed from his fall with cat-like grace. A long furry tail studded with wickedly sharp horns extended behind him and twisting horns threaded their way through his white hair like a lopsided crown.

“Oh so you’re not so shy when you’re threatening me then,” Patches bluffed, quietly reaching for his spear as he stood up.

Morgott easily caught the movement and quickly knocked it out of his hands with his tail.

“Hey! What in blazes did you do that for!”

Patches shook his hand trying to dispel the pain of being smacked. Now he was actually starting to get scared, though he disguised his fear with anger as was his habit.

“I reiterate, who is thy master?”

“I don’t know what you think is going on here, but I’m no threat to you or your brother.”

Morgott picked Patches up by the shoulder and slammed him against one of the nearby trees.

“Try again. Why dost thou refuse to call for help when a god is at thy service, what is it you don’t want him to know?”

Patches was panicking now. Every corner of his mind searching for a way to escape. In his desperation he tore a branch from the tree he was pinned to. He had never been good at sorcery in Lordran or Boletaria, he was too stupid and impatient, but he had managed to pickpocket a few interesting looking spells off of some of Garreth’s previous iterations. His time in Yharnam had made him smarter, a better study of the arcane. He was still no sorcerer, but he was damn desperate. A tree branch wouldn’t have worked for the strange celestial magic of this place, so it was a good thing he didn’t intend to use it. Patches let himself fall inward until he felt the edges of his soul, torn and battered as it was. Then he fell deeper, dropping further and further below the surface of consciousness until he felt a familiar hole. With each rebirth it had become wider and wider, threatening to swallow him, the darkness consuming him for good. For the moment though Patches greeted the darkness within his soul like an old friend, allowing it to flow up his arm and through the branch of birch wood in his hand.

Morgott dropped him in surprise as an orb of darkness formed at the tip of his makeshift catalyst. Then it impacted Morgott square in the chest, knocking him onto his back.

“Ha! Serves you right, you mad brute! Try and hit me again! See what happens!”

Morgott launched himself at Patches, tackling him to the ground. He wrenched the birch wood branch from his grip and held the pointed edge of it against the thief’s throat.

“No hard feelings, eh? I meant nothing by it.” He lifted his hands above his head, falling back on his old stand by.

“What hast thou done to me?!”

Morgott clutched his head and his grip tightened on the branch, drawing a bead of blood. Patches swallowed as it dripped down the side of his neck.

“Come on now, don’t be rash. Was just a little sorcery.”

“That was not sorcery!”

Morgott pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Crying out in pain.

“Cripes!” Patches cursed.

He managed to pull himself out from under Morgott as he wheeled back and retrieved his branch. Morgott pulled his hands from his eyes, a look of utter rage on his face. The moment he looked as if he was about to pounce Patches brought the stick in front of him.

“Stay back!”

Morgott flinched. He looked at Patches with sheer hatred, but he didn’t move.

“Guess we’re at a standstill.” Patches knelt down as he spoke and groped around on the ground behind him for his spear, making sure to keep Morgott in sight.

“What was that?” Morgott growled.

“Like I said, just a bit of sorcery.” When Morgott looked like he was about to object again, Patches clarified, “Not the kind you’re familiar with. You should be glad it hurt so much, it means you’ve still got plenty of humanity left in you. That’s not something just anyone can say.”

Now Morgott seemed caught between rage and bewilderment. His tail lashing back and forth in agitation.

“Now thou speakest in riddles.”

“Don’t know if you can call them riddles, more like answers you don’t have the questions to.”

Patches looked Morgott in the eyes, put the branch down on the ground and stepped away.

“See, I’m not here to cause you any grief. If you want to talk I’ll talk but I promise you, I’m not working for anyone, but myself.”

Morgott’s eyes narrowed.

“What are you then?”

“Just a fellow who’s been around a lot. Nothing more than that. I feel like I ought to get a question too, you know. What are your brother’s actual intentions for my friend?”

“They are genuinely romantic as far as I know, though sometimes what goes on in his head is an utter mystery to me. What art thy intentions, if thou art truly a lone actor?”

“To survive. Everyone knows I was close with Garreth, we’re practically brothers, now that he’s escaped they’ll be looking for me to tell them where he is. Besides, I have my own problems with gods. The further out from under your mother’s nose I can get the better. What about you? You’re too straight-laced to be a revolutionary.”

Morgott flinched again. For someone who could crush Patches’s head like a wet grape he certainly was self conscious.

“I want to live in a world where prayers are answered.”

Patches snorted at that.

“Don’t we all, mate?”

“What is thy relationship with my brother’s fiancé?”

“Like I said, we're practically brothers. I’ve known him for a long enough time that nothing else would seem right.”

Morgott gave him a disbelieving side eye.

“What, you think I’m in love with him? Do I look mad to you? You think I’d want to spend the rest of my life pulling him out of whatever fires he’s managed to set around himself? Of course not.” Patches crossed his arms before adding “I like women,” perhaps a bit too defensively.

He was only reasonably sure he only liked women. There had been an exception once, but Patches was reasonably sure that had been a fluke and Gareth had certainly never managed to clear the high bar his exception had set.

“I have one final question for thee.” Morgott crossed his arms. “What is a Dark Sign? Thou never answered when asked before.”

“It was the mark of a curse. Though you don’t need to worry too much about it, it seems like that curse was spun as a blessing this go around.”

“What was the nature of it?”

“Immortality of a sort, the marked would return from the dead eternally until they eventually lost their minds. Sounds familiar right?” Patches inclined his head towards the Erdtree. “Life eternal for those who live under its branches, but does anyone ever consider if they really want to live that long?”

“To think that way was a luxury I was never afforded.”

“You’re better off.” Patches stared up at the golden branches. “I know the way that sounds. Like a rich man telling a starving one he’s better off without money, but in this case, trust me, you’re better off. It helps you keep your humanity.”

Patches didn’t quite know what he was anymore. He was more an archetype than a person really, only the gaping abyssal core of his soul reminded him that he was at least at one point human. Whether or not he still was, that was a matter of perspective he supposed.

“I am not human.” Morgott curled in on himself. “It does me no good to try and retain something I never had.”

“I think non-human things can have humanity. I have to hope they do at least.” Because if they didn’t then what was the point anymore, he left out. “I think gods can have it in traces. That’s why they answer prayers right? Because some part of them understands why you’re asking?” And why sometimes they refused them so cruelly, because there was malice in humanity as much as there was kindness, he didn’t say. “Not that I’m comparing you to a god or anything, I imagine you’d find that offensive. I mean even the things furthest from humans, as high as gods and as lowly as rats have at least a little bit of it. Yet humans are so willing to give it up for such stupid reasons.”

“You speak like you are talking about a species different from your own.”

Patches blinked at the sudden change in formality.

“I’m just a misanthrope is all. Plenty of people end up like that when you get to my age.”

“And how old is that?”

“Sixteen.”

Morgott snorted.

“I’ve won you over then have I.”

“You’ve merely proven yourself more amusing than dangerous.”

“Suppose I must be pretty damn amusing to get away with pulling unknown sorcery on you.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Morgott’s tail flicked behind him and Patches raised his hands.

“Course not, I wouldn't dream of it.”

It was a good day’s journey from Altus Plateau down to Limgrave. At first, it was slow going. The four of them had to evade patrols of soldiers fairly frequently, not wanting to call undue attention by fighting. After they picked their way through the ruins lining the cliffside down into Liurnia, it was much smoother sailing. They still avoided fighting patrols of knights until they reached Limgrave, but there were far fewer down here. Things were more peaceful further away from the capital, there was less need for the constant patrols in Liurnia. In Limgrave, the far flung site of so much dissent against the Golden Order, it was even easier. This wasn’t a place where people reported you to the town guard for traveling with omens, or for much of anything really.

It was coming on night when they finally reached their destination. It was an old ruin, with a domed roof in the style of some of the older buildings in the capital and the other ruins scattered through out the lands between. This building though was fully intact, though the doors lay eerily open. Inside was a large ring of carved stone with a pressure plate in its center.

Patches knew what that was, but what was an elevator doing in the middle of the woods?

“It’s down here.” Gareth pointed at the elevator as if where they were headed wasn’t obvious.

What his companion’s obsession with crawling deeper and deeper under ground was, Patches couldn’t say, but he supposed he should’ve expected this. When all four of them stood on the elevator, Gareth depressed the pressure plate and the elevator began to descend.

It took an unusually long time to descend. At first Patches thought the magic that powered the thing might have started to wear down, but then the shaft opened and he realized it was so that passengers could take in the view. As they descended a city came into sight, decorated with suspended purple glintstone as if it was built among a sea of stars. As he stared slack jawed at it, the sheer vibrancy of the ruin stunning to him, he caught Gareth watching him out of the corner of his eyes with a grin on his face.

“Just when you’d thought you’d seen everything right?” He gave Patches a knowing look.

“That’s a nasty habit you’re developing.”

He started thinking about the sound of the emergency klaxons in his old Armored Core and Gareth winced.

“I’m going to start thinking about that noise whenever I catch you poking around in there.”

“Thanks.” Gareth rubbed his temples. “I really have to stop doing that.”

“Indeed. One of these days you will catch someone in a far less charitable mood or with far more to hide.” Mohg added.

Morgott glanced at Patches. The thief gave him his best “I don’t know what you’re talking about” look and the omen rolled his eyes.

After getting off the elevator, they walked a little further, went up a second, shorter, elevator, and then came out into a wider section of the cave. Here were the ruins Patches had seen on the ride down, stretching towards the too-far-away-to-see cave ceiling. He could see in the distance a ruined temple on a plateau, unreachable from where they currently stood.

Gareth kicked around in the bushes by the cliff facing the plateau for a bit, before uncovering a makeshift waygate.

“You and Morgott first.” Gareth pointed to the incredibly sketchy gate.

“I’ve never used one of these before, would you mind going first?” Patches asked, not wanting to be the first to go through the rickety thing.

“Yeah hold on a second.” Gareth bent down and kicked Patches’s ankles out from under him. Out of reflex, Patches grabbed the edge of the waygate and then he was on the ground in the center of a ruined temple. He supposed that served him right. There had been plenty of times he’d done the same after all. He stood up and dusted himself off before taking a look around.

It seemed he’d been wrong. It wasn’t a temple, but the ruins of an ancient palace. A throne made for a giant sat on one end of the building, what looked like the pelvis of its previous occupant still resting upon it. It was completely open air, with no walls between columns to keep out the non existent elements, an architectural detail only practical in a palace built underground. Through the columns he could see the ancient palace complex spread out through a network of caves below and out into an overgrown garden with a shallow lake.

Morgott blinked into existence in the spot where Patches had just been.

“That was rather cruel of him.”

Patches shrugged.

“I would’ve done the same to him.”

“I will have to keep that in mind.”

Mohg and Gareth took significantly longer to arrive. Instead of appearing in the same spot as the other two, Mohg dropped from the sky carrying the young god in his arms. He had lustrous black wings, ragged at the edges like a giant hawk, and he landed with all the grace of a bird of prey.

“Sorry we’re late, we had to destroy the waygate. Can’t have anybody dropping in on us.” Mohg let Gareth down as the god addressed Patches. “You can still leave when you want of course, we’ve got a return gate up here that leads back down. Mohg is trying to figure out a way to let specific people get up here without leaving something just anybody can use.”

“I believe if I can attach the magic to some sort of talisman or brooch it might work, though we may need to build some sort of receiver on this end to determine where the person using it will come in. I suppose that will have to go on the list of renovations.”

“We still haven’t finished building living quarters,” Morgott pointed out.

“I didn’t say it was high on the list. Building adequate living quarters, ensuring we can produce food, and testing the potability of the water are still higher up.”

“Yet you’ve seen fit to spend your time modifying the throne.”

“You didn’t say where my living quarters ought to be. I think I deserve to sleep upon a throne after all I’ve suffered.”

“You will hurt your back.” Morgott crossed his arms.

“And that will be a small price to pay.”

“Looks like there should be plenty of room.” Gareth looked at Mohg with a rakish grin.

“I think that’s a discussion topic for later, dearest.”

The god of flame melted at the endearment.

“I think we ought to leave those two alone.” Patches tugged at Morgott’s sleeve, not wanting to see them eyefucking eachother any longer. “Do you mind showing me where I can put my things down? I need some time to rest.”

“Patches!”

Gareth ran to his side as he and Morgott turned to leave.

“Thank you for coming with us. I’m glad you’re here.”

The god hugged him. For a moment,Patches stood with his hands in the air unsure of how to respond. Then he awkwardly ruffled Garreth’s hair.

“You won’t be so happy once I start causing trouble.”

“If you didn’t cause trouble then you wouldn’t be my friend. I wanted you here, Patches, not just some guy that looks like you.”

Gareth’s sincerity made him want to look away. Betrayal was always around the next corner, so was death and the endless cycle of rebirth and amnesia. He couldn’t afford to get more attached than he already was to this one. It would just hurt him worse when his companion inevitably held a sword to his neck, or a gun to his head in the next iteration. Screw it, he had to let himself enjoy some aspects of life, he’d go insane otherwise, having to do this over and over again. Patches let himself hug Gareth back.