The Ghost of Vermil-Chapter 32: Diana III

The following morning, Diana found a small linen wrap placed on her seat. Gingerly, she unfolded it. My Die of Fate!

Except it was not shaped like a die. It was still in the form of the sharp toothed dagger that she buried below the Ghost's chest before Catherine Ashwood took him. And now its once ruby red blade had faded into gray, shattered in two, edges lined with fissures. Chipped, useless. All the holy power stored within it had been drained.

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Do they mock me? Returning my artifact like this? She wondered if it was Marco or the brother.

After she had lost it a week ago, she had already written to House Rupert to search for a replacement. She had been looking around in Gallenport too but could not find one suitable to her Peerless Luck.

The Test on Energy Perception took place in the largest Henge Circle. In the middle of it was the largest artifact that Diana had ever seen.

"This is the House of Rules." Professor Mallory opened its wide-arching front door that seemed to have been hewn from oak. The artifact was in the shape of a huge white mansion studded with a hundred windows. Two storeys tall, it towered over the marble stones. When Diana peered through the glass, utter darkness stared back at her.

"The House and everything inside it obey the rules made by none other than me," the professor explained, "Today, the rules were set to facilitate the Test, so worry not."

The top ten's teams went in one after another in turns, starting from the Tenth. Three students passed through the front door. One window lit up in the first storey.

"Does that mean they are in that room right now?" An Aleph asked to which the professor nodded.

"The rooms are random, don't think too much into it," she advised.

The House of Rules was silent as stone. They had no idea whatever transpired inside its walls.

Then another window lit up. The Tenth Team had moved to another room. If the first was a penalty room, they had advanced. It gave Diana a sense of assurance that as the Eighth in Freshmen Aleph, she was capable of it too. Better even.

The Tenth Team finished at 140 merit points, as displayed on the sign at the front door. Professor Mallory went over the result, "They opened the demonic rooms for the first two choices, but missed them for the third and fourth due to the low perceptibility of the artifacts there. I think it was by a stroke of luck they found the reward room in the fifth one."

The scholars who stepped out of the House of Rules carried a cheap box of peaches and weary faces. It made Diana all the more curious what penalty they went through, and whether her team would be facing the same. Professor Mallory told them not to divulge the types of rooms they encountered.

"Who decided on the rewards?" Yuri asked, derisively, grabbing a peach his team had earned.

"I did," the professor snapped, "do you have a problem?"

Yuri wrung his head, biting into the fruit. "No. These are wonderful, Professor."

The Ninth Team entered and thirty minutes later exited with 180 merits. They went for the penalty rooms in the first three but missed them in the next two, ending up with plain doors. It seemed that the challenge was not enduring the penalties but pinpointing the door that led to it in the first place.

Then it was Diana's Team's turn. Their plan was simple: reap 450 merits.

Four of them went through the wooden front door, finding themselves in a small study room complete with desks and chairs and a wall lined with shelves of title-less books. At the far end awaited five doors seemingly cut from the same timber, covered in the same tint of varnish.

Diana called to Rickland, "I'm counting on you, Rick."

They followed him to the door in the middle. Diana breathed a deep sigh, readying herself.

"It's cold," Jennifer commented as they stepped in.

The door they entered vanished, leaving but a wall where it had been. The penalty room they entered was covered in icicles. Pieces of frozen heads of pigs and cattle were stacked in one corner, their eyes wide open, while a suspicious-looking figure lay in one corner.

"Holy Angel, is that a person?" Rickland flinched, his breath coming in puffs of cloud.

Although covered in ice, its limbs and fingers were clearly discernible, its mouth agape suggesting it died first before it froze.

Is that what's going to happen to us?

The Ghost of Vermil stepped over to it silently, his shoes creaking on the ice. He knelt on one knee and touched the frozen corpse with his unbandaged hand, muttering, "It's an illusion."

Diana scoffed, "Of course, we know it's an illusion. You don't need holy power to figure it out. Why would Professor Mallory place an actual corpse here? Think." Yet this illusion threatened to freeze them to death. The cold they felt was real.

He stood up calmly, seemingly unaffected by her mockery. Meanwhile, Jennifer and Rickland were shivering under the thin coat of Demach's uniform. Diana also felt the chill penetrating her clothes. I would have dressed more warmly if I knew we'd encounter a room like this.

She chanted, "STAR OF HOPE!" The Star that fended off the cold in the most hopeless winters. She gathered a small amount of holy energy from her overflowing reserve and formed an orb that radiated with heat. "Jen, please create a barrier to keep the warmth inside," she ordered her team member.

Jennifer did as she was told, chanting the DIVINE PROVIDENCE. When the Ghost motioned to come inside, Diana shot her a glare. Without the need for words, he understood that he was not welcome in there. He sat in a corner, shivering.

They had no way of knowing how many minutes passed. Diana had to create another Star because the first one died out.

Then with a dreadful beat of drums, a set of five identical doors carved themselves out of the ice-covered wall.

"Rickland," she spoke.

He carefully checked each door, standing before them before making a decision. He took longer than the first one. The energy embedded in the doors had dropped.

"It's faint but I'm sure it's the fourth one," he proclaimed. Flinching at the cold touch of the handle, he swung his chosen door open.

The second penalty room was a spacious bathroom with a toilet and a large tub.

"Oh, I feel a piss calling," remarked Rickland.

"Hey, have some decency," Jennifer poked his ribs.

"I kid," he laughed, then frowned, "but seriously—"

PSST! Murky water suddenly spewed out from the pipes and the drainage and the toilet, splashing the floor and splattering on their clothes.

"Professor Mallory is so cruel," Jennifer wept as the water of untold filth pooled around them. She grimaced as brown sludge and solids swam right up to them, carrying the unbearable stench of human excrement.

"It's an illusion," the Ghost of Vermil spoke.

"We know," Diana shut him up. She knew but it disgusted her all the same. "Jennifer, a barrier. I'll assist."

They constructed a barrier of holy energy to keep the sickening sludge at bay. Diana regarded the deplorable figure of the Ghost, not intending to invite him in even as the gunk clung to him and painted his coat in shades of brown. He should manage on his own if he thinks this is just an illusion.

The murky brown water soon reached their waist, then the top of their heads. Their fourth member was swimming in the pool of human wastes and grime. But the level still kept rising. Jennifer strained to keep her part of the barrier up against the water pressing from all sides.

"Can you hold, Jen?"

She nodded, turning her head away whenever a brown matter drifted near.

More minutes passed, before suddenly, Jennifer wailed, "I'm sorry Diana!"

Diana only heard the sound of the barrier cracking before a gush of water and filth poured over their heads. All three of them screamed. She feared she might have swallowed some solid matter. She dismantled her barrier and took in a lungful of rancid air. As the force of water thrashed her body around, she tried her hardest to swim up.

Damn you Jennifer, damn you to hell. If she knew the gal could not hold a barrier for that long, she would have done it all herself.

Catching her breath, she broke the surface and kicked to stay afloat amidst the sludge and wastes around her. She met Lucas's gaze as they tread the water, his golden hair laden with dirt. There was no emotion there. Not of anger or loneliness or vindication.

Rickland emerged from the murkiness followed by Jennifer, shouting, "I hate this!" Faecal matter went to her mouth as she did so. She nearly drowned choking on it.

When they thought the water would drown them, it began to subside to their utmost relief. Gently, their feet touched the floor again. The water disappeared but not the filth and stench it had left on them.

"Oh Lord, it was only worth 60 merits," Rickland stared at the five doors that materialized with the sound of drumbeats. He was panting, shoulders slouched, his knees shaking from all the swimming. The sudden onrush of water from earlier when their barrier broke had blasted him away. An impact with the floor had inflicted a bleeding wound on his temple.

"Rick, we aim for 450 merits. Remember? This is nothing. We are still alive and breathing, that's all that matters."

He shook his head, "Whatever." He proceeded to play his role again even though she could tell her words did not work. Even Jennifer was palpably left horrified from that revolting ordeal. Only the Ghost of Vermil appeared composed. Her team was falling apart.

"The demonic door, Rick," she reminded him.

"This right here," he pointed to the first door.

"It's dark," the Ghost muttered as soon as the door shut close and vanished.

The third penalty room was pitch black. No, it was more than that. Diana tried to look for her hands but could not find them. Her sense of touch had betrayed her, even the perception of where her limbs were had abandoned her.

"Fuck, I don't like it," Rickland cried. She could hear him but she could not tell where he was.

"Endure!" She yelled. "This is an illusion." And a powerful one.

"I like this better than the toilet," Jennifer's voice sounded.

"As do I," Diana said, laughing.

Eeerh... She heard a groan, as though someone was suffocating to death.

"Can you create an orb of light... please, my lady?" The pained voice of the Ghost of Vermil echoed. He was moaning, breaths heaving. Gone was the collected image of him. Not the cold nor filthiness could unhinge him. But in the dark, he sounded like a dying swine.

"Endure it! Why would I make an orb of light for you?" She yelled at the dark.

"Please... please... I can't see anything... some light... please..., " he sobbed whilst gasping for breath.

"What is his problem?" Jen asked.

"Is this his fear?" Rickland said from nowhere.

His gasps became more laboured and rapid, chasing for air that would not come. "Please!" He blurted between breaths.

"Diana, we should help him, or else we'll all go down with him if he surrenders," Rickland urged.

Damn it! She gathered holy energy into another ball, making it glow with light that revealed her body to her, and her body alone. Nothing else.

"Did it fail?" Jen's voice asked with worry.

"No," Diana blurted out.

"We can't see anything, Diana," Rickland uttered with urgency from within the dark.

The darkness in the third penalty room was impenetrable, too thick for the orb of light to pierce through.

Meanwhile, the Ghost of Vermil kept on panting, about to run out of breath. "I can't... I'm sorry..." She heard the thud of him falling to the floor, but she still could not tell where he was.

Diana rushed to produce another larger ball of light, shouting, "Endure it or I'm going to kill you right here!" The triumph she imagined was quickly slipping out of her hands. The ball of light above her gave off an intense glow, yet it illuminated nothing. This darkness was not meant to be banished, she realized. It swallowed every light that dared touch it.

From within that unyielding darkness, she listened to his gasps of suffering, and then his voice that cried, "Forgive... me... my lady... I surrender..."