"Interesting," Adrien mused aloud, leaning back against the rough headboard. "So the Strigoi we faced… they were the remnants of the Princess's retinue, and Krsto Borisavljević may be one of them."
The pieces were beginning to fall into place, casting a grim new light on the monsters they had fought. Hunger for answers overriding his exhaustion, Adrien turned back to the journal, diving deeper into Krsto's final, frantic testimony.
'The Empire wore a mask of stability,' the entry read, the ink bleeding heavily into the parchment. 'But beneath the gilded surface, it was rotting. Whispers of dissent spread among the common folk like a plague, fueled entirely by the unchecked arrogance of the nobility. When the Princess caught wind of an ancient ruin hidden within these lands, she seized upon it. She claimed she sought some lost relic or power, something grand enough to placate the high houses and secure her family's grip on the throne.'
Krsto's prose suddenly jagged downward, the elegant script dissolving into a furious scrawl.
'Placate them. As if those hollow, greedy ghosts could ever be satisfied. The more you feed them, the hungrier they grow. They are nothing but parasites bloating themselves on the blood of the peasantry. If only the people would—'
A thick, aggressive line of dark ink struck through the rest of the sentence, cutting the thought short. Yet, even defaced, the raw, boiling resentment was palpable. Adrien stared at the marred page, a quiet sense of understanding settling over him. From the history lessons of his own world, he knew this story by heart. The common folk rarely fared well under the boot of an aristocracy, and Krsto had clearly reached his breaking point long before the cavern sealed.
Adrien flipped the page, following the tragedy to its climax.
'I was so blinded by the relief of serving her again that I ignored the rot right in front of my face. I failed to see how the atmosphere within our ranks had soured. The Princess grew paranoid, her eyes darting nervously at her own shadow. She listened only to Miloš, swallowing his toxic whispers whole until she viewed her most loyal defenders with absolute suspicion.'
'Even after we reached the cavern housing the ruins, she refused to let us close. She ordered the vanguard to establish camp a significant distance from the excavation site. The entourage consisted entirely of her most trusted household servants, yet she treated us like a garrison of traitors. She expected an assassination attempt at any moment. Me, most of all. I was ordered to pitch my tent at the furthest perimeter, isolated from everyone.''I remember the final morning. Miloš looked down at us from the ridge, a foul, triumphant smirk plastered across his face as he murmured another lie into the Princess's ear. I saw the flash of pure terror in her eyes, and then, one day, they abruptly left. We tried to pursue them, to protect her from whatever madness she was chasing, but then this damned barrier erupted, sealing us in. It cut us off, and now, we wait in the dark.'
'So that is how they were trapped inside the cave,' Adrien hummed, the realisation sinking in, as he shifted his weight on the creaking bed and turned the page, continuing to read.
'That bastard. That filthy, wretched bastard! How dare he? How dare Miloš von Vane stand right outside the perimeter just to gloat? He stood there and mocked us, bragging about how he had impregnated the Princess out of wedlock. That useless, diseased, arrogant wastrel! The only reason that coward is still breathing is because of this godforsaken barrier. If not for this stone wall, I would have—'
Adrien actually winced, taken aback by the sheer, unbridled fury radiating from the parchment. The text dissolved into a barrage of incredibly vivid, highly creative curses that actually made Adrien's ears burn.
'Man,' Adrien thought, shaking his head in a mix of awe and second-hand embarrassment. 'My mom would wash my mouth out with industrial soap if I even hinted at knowing half of those words, and on top of that… what Krsto promised to do to Miloš's anatomy is definitely biologically impossible. Right?'
Amused but thoroughly sobered, he looked back down at the jagged scrawl.
'The monster sealed the Princess inside the ruin itself and threw the key through the barrier to mock us. We have the key now, but what use is it? We have no way to breach the wall. We tried. By the Gods, we tried everything. We chipped our blades against the stone, we bled, but we are utterly trapped in this damp, suffocating tomb. Even digging our way out is impossible.'
Adrien turned to a new page, and the violent, aggressive strokes had faded, replaced by a shaky, trembling hand that spoke of deep physical exhaustion.
'It has been a week since the sky was stolen from us, and our supplies are gone. The water we brought has turned foul and contaminated, leaving us violently ill, and the rations became too mouldy to force down, and the Princess… alone in the deep dark of those ruins… My mind tells me she must be dead by now. But my heart… my foolish, desperate heart refuses to believe it.'
'We are starving. The hunger is a gnawing beast in our bellies, but today, we found something in the deeper recesses of the cavern. Clusters of glowing blue mushrooms. We were terrified to touch them at first, fearing poison, but the hunger became too much. We tasted them… and they are miraculous. Delicious, rich, and full of life, and our stomachs are finally full.'
On the next page, Krsto's writing deteriorated into a chaotic, jagged scrawl. It wasn't just physical weakness anymore; Adrien could instantly tell that the man's mind was fracturing under the dark influence of the cavern.
'They are everywhere,' the text sloped erratically across the parchment. 'The eyes, always watching, always. I can hear them blinking, I can smell their voices, and see their foul stench. They follow me into the shadows, and the hunger… the unending, gnawing hunger. No matter how many of those delicious blue mushrooms I gorge myself on, the void in my belly never ends. I know the eyes are responsible, but I care not. Today, the Princess herself came down from the ruins to feed me. She stroked my hair and complimented how handsome I looked, covered in blue.'
'I even fought that bastard Miloš again. I caught him sneaking around the perimeter and kicked him until he stopped breathing. I broke his ribs, kicked him so hard that he finally learned his place and started calling me captain. On another note, one of the men found a dead goat deeper in the tunnels today. Meat is back on the menu! We partied hard beneath the roots of the earth. I am so happy, hahaha!'
'Oh, oh! Before I forget, and before those eyes steal my thoughts again, I must draw the map to the ruins. The Princess needs something from the deep vault, and I will go and fetch it for her, hehehe. After all, I am her loyal, beloved knight.'
Adrien's breath hitched, a sudden chill striking him as the horrifying implications of the text sank in. A heavy weight settled in his stomach. Krsto hadn't been fighting Miloš; the nobleman was safe outside the barrier. The "bastard" Krsto had beaten to death was one of his own subordinates, and there were no goats in the deep, sealed depths of that cavern.
They hadn't eaten livestock, but their own comrade. The blue glowing mushrooms were a terrifyingly potent hallucinogen, slowly twisting their minds and turning them into the ravenous, flesh-eating Strigoi Adrien had fought.
With a trembling hand, Adrien turned the final page, and his eyes fell upon a rough, hand-drawn map of the cavern layout and the surrounding wilderness.
His eyes widened, a jolt of pure adrenaline shocking him awake.
'Wait a minute,' Adrien thought, leaning closer to trace the ink lines with his finger. 'I know this place.'
Adrien's mind raced as his eyes flicked between the faded journal page and his mental map of the surrounding region. It felt impossible, and yet the landmarks lined up perfectly.
Just a couple of days ago, he and Vera had been making their gruelling way back to town after a successful mining trip, their inventories heavy with a good haul of coal. They had been ambushed by a pack of bandits. After a chaotic skirmish, they had cleaned out the thugs' pockets, and Vera had pulled a crudely drawn map from the bandit's corpse. At the time, they figured the bandits were just hunting for a hidden cache or an easy score. but looking at Krsto's frantic sketches now, the truth hit him like a physical blow. The bandits hadn't been wandering. They were hunting for the same ancient ruins where Princess Danica had been entombed centuries ago, and the entrance sat right in the heart of that very same territory.
"No way," Adrien breathed, a massive, brilliant grin breaking across his face as the sheer absurdity of the coincidence washed over him, as he carefully slipped the ancient journal back inside his backpack, "What a ridiculous stroke of luck. Man, I cannot wait for Vera to log back in."