Skeleton Army

After daybreak, the Skeleton Army still surrounded us. We had spent all of yesterday on edge, and now our most pressing problem had emerged:

There was very little edible food in the watchtower, nowhere near enough to feed a hundred or so people. Everyone kept their eyes fixed on what little food there was.

Someone now announced his identity, hoping to receive special treatment. "I'm a Demacian noble! You should give me some!"

"I'm a noble too. You commoners, get out of my way!"

"I'm from House Dali of Demacia! All of you, stand back, or you'll regret it!"

That name clearly intimidated the nobles who had spoken up moments earlier. No one dared to defy him, though their eyes remained fixed on the food.

House Dali might be far more exalted than they were, but not enough to make them give up their lives. The glory they had accumulated over the years crumbled away in an instant.

Witt had five guards beside him, armed with finely crafted Demacian weapons. But they didn't dare make a move, especially with some twenty brawny sailors here. So Witt began trying to win me over:

"Brave Ionian, you've met Lady Fiora, so you must know her reputation. Now let me tell you, I'm from House Dali, which stands on equal footing with the Laurent Family. My father is Great General Dali, commander of Demacia's Northern Army, and my wife is Luxanna of House Lightshield. Help me, and you'll live a life of luxury!"

Witt was Lux's husband!

When we'd met at Demacia's Hall of Valor, Fiora had called her Madame Dali. It seemed that Witt was the man she had married.

Lux had grieved for a long time over my death. If Witt died here too, it would only make her suffer more. So, despite everyone's protests, I chose to help him, securing a good amount of food.

The captain watched, but didn't stop me. He knew that if he led the others in opposing me now, we'd all die here.

Witt was delighted. He clearly didn't know he had Lux to thank, and thought I'd been won over by his power. He even rewarded me with a piece of bread and a jug of wine.

The others glared at me with vicious looks, as if they'd already forgotten I was the one who'd saved them. Though, come to think of it, dying here wouldn't exactly count as being saved.

"You might want to be careful when you go to sleep tonight," Poppy warned me.

"I don't care. If they think killing me will save them, they can do as they please."

That night, as I lay on the roof of the tower, I kept wondering how we could escape. I took a bite of the bread in my hand. It tasted terribly fishy.

After three miserable days, Witt was the only one in the watchtower with any food left. Everyone else had gone hungry, and they looked ready to seize his provisions at any moment.

The captain didn't want to see the few of us left turn on one another, so he came to me. "I might have a way for us to escape, but..."

"You look troubled. Does your plan mean a lot of people will have to be sacrificed?"

"Not a lot of people. Possibly everyone. I want to blow up this ship! There's plenty of explosives here. We're going to die either way, so we might as well take these monsters down with us!"

"So we have to die with them?"

"We can jump from the watchtower into the sea. I don't know what's beyond the fog. Whether we live or die, we'll leave it to the gods."

"Looks like we have no other choice."

I agreed to the captain's plan. If things continued like this, we'd end up killing one another sooner or later. When we told the others, everyone agreed except Witt, who still had some food left.

We piled the explosives together and gathered on the roof of the tower. I held up a torch.

"I'll count to three. Everyone jump together! Three... two... one!"

Some had still been clinging to the railing, unwilling to let go. But the instant I lit the fuse, everyone jumped without hesitation.

The ship exploded just as I hit the water. The powerful blast nearly knocked me unconscious. I had no idea how the others were doing. Still, dying in the explosion would be better than dying in a panic or killing one another.

There were no monsters in the water, but the cold sea was unbearable. I took a moment to recover, then hurried to the surface. Carefully lifting my head above the water, I saw that the fog had cleared.

The sea was strewn with wreckage. Ship fragments and all kinds of debris were everywhere, but there wasn't a single Skeleton Soldier in sight, as if they'd never existed.

I found a fairly large plank and clung to it, searching for survivors. Before long, I spotted the captain among a pile of bodies.

I didn't think he could still be alive. Even strong young men couldn't withstand the impact of the explosion, let alone an older man like him. But a cough made my heart leap, and I hurried over to check on him.

The old man in the sailor's uniform was incredibly tough. He'd survived even this. I quickly pulled him onto the plank.

"Are you all right?"

"Cough, cough, cough... That nearly killed me. Good thing I'm still in decent shape."

"There are no other survivors around here. Let's look over there."

The two of us clung to the plank and paddled forward. Before long, we found Witt. He was incredibly lucky too, though he looked badly shaken.

"You're alive! Thank goodness."

"I pulled him out of the water," Poppy said, surfacing beside us.

We continued searching for survivors. Witt soon ran out of strength and insisted on resting while we waited for help. The shore wasn't far away, after all, and the explosion would easily have drawn attention.

Sure enough, a few rescue boats soon arrived from the shore. These little boats could only carry a dozen or so people, but they were light and fast, making them ideal for rescue missions.

The captain and Witt returned to shore together. They were both freezing. Poppy and I went with the rescuers to look for other survivors. After all, I'd taken the others' food back on the ship, and I felt a little guilty.

By dusk, we still hadn't found any other survivors. But the good news was that I'd found my spear, firmly embedded in a piece of the ship's hull.

When night fell and the cold sea breeze had us shivering, we returned to shore.

It was a small village. According to the host who put us up, everyone in the village was a fisherman, and they made their living from the sea. They'd never heard of any Sea Demons.

Some people had been out at sea during the day and heard the explosion, so they'd alerted the village and called for help. They hadn't expected that only four of us would survive from the entire ship.

All of Witt's men had died. Accustomed to having people wait on him, he kept ordering me around. I neither argued with him nor obeyed. Perhaps he realized it was pointless, because before long he stopped acting so arrogantly.

I asked Witt why he'd come to such a remote place. He said he'd wanted to please Lux, so he'd set out in search of the legendary Ageless Water.

I'd only asked out of curiosity, but he went on to pour out all his troubles to me:

He hadn't been happy during the years they'd been married. He'd never seen Lux smile, and they'd barely spoken. They hadn't even shared a bed.

A few days earlier, he'd overheard Lux discussing various legends and anecdotes with a friend. She'd seemed especially interested when they talked about Ionia's Ageless Water, so he'd come here to look for it. He hadn't expected to nearly die.

"She must still be thinking about that Laurent brat. Every time she comes back from paying her respects at the Hall of Valor, she suffers for days," Witt said bitterly of Leivo, unaware that I was right beside him.

Hearing that made me feel guilty. I wanted to help him, and repay Lux for the way she remembered me.

"Do you know where the Ageless Water is?"

"I heard there's an ice spring in Prexian, and that the secret of the Ageless Water lies at its source. You'd have to ask the locals for the details. But I've given up. This place is too dangerous."

"Is that all your love amounts to? No wonder Luxanna has someone else on her mind."

"Of course not! No one loves her more than I do! It's just too difficult for me alone, and besides... If I die here, how can I go on loving her?"

"Maybe I can help you."

"You can help me? What do you want?"

"Money."

After the shipwreck, I was penniless. Seeing the jeweled rings on Witt's fingers, I decided to squeeze some money out of him. It would make a good travel fund for Poppy and me.

"I don't have any money to give you right now... All right, take this ring. The gemstone would fetch a substantial sum if you traded it for gold. I hope I can trust you."

Poppy didn't care about any of this. She kept polishing her warhammer. It was clear that the hammer meant a lot to her.

"Is this the warhammer you're going to give to the great hero?"

"Yes. I call it Oren's Hammer, because it belonged to my good friend Oren. He was a demon hunter who helped people root out dark magic. The locals called him a great hero."

"If he was such a great hero, why did he give the hammer to someone else?"

"He died a long time ago. We met more than three hundred years ago. It's a long story. I'll tell you on the road."

The captain had lost his ship, and he was old. He planned to spend the rest of his life in the seaside village. Witt, meanwhile, said he would find the best-known passenger ship in the area and return to Demacia. He never wanted to go through anything like this again.

And so we'd arrived in a grand procession, only to leave scattered and apart.