The city streets were overgrown, scarred by battle. Armor laid strewn across the street, dried blood puddles with skeletons laying in the middle of them littered the ground. The building next to the gate had taken a direct hit from something, rubble covered the ground in front of the semi demolished building. The grey sky above made the scene even more sad. The lives that were just so casually snuffed out here in the matter of moments. Rea was walking around carefully, looking at the discarded armor and gasping every so often when she found a skeleton inside the pieces. Anzar kept close to me, his fur on his neck standing straight up, his teeth turned into a horrifying smile. a low growl escaped from his throat as he faced a large staircase going up onto a flat platform. a lone knight stood in the center of that platform. A large sword sat at rest in his hands in front of him, his silver helm shinning under the brief ray of sunlight casting on him. Around the knight lay countless sets of armor, wagons and gear from previous groups who sought their fame here. Some of the bodies were mummified while others were fresh, as if the knight was the last standing sentinel in this city of lost souls. Weapons were cast away everywhere, I looked around for one that happened to be in decent shape.
"Get ready, something is off here." I rasped towards Rea.
Anzar sensing my anxiety was on my left keeping a tight loop between me and Rea, his growl getting louder.
The knight slowly turned his head towards us and raised its large blade at us.
"Move!" I yelled, throwing Rea out of the way.
I barely got the sword up in time to deflect the crushing blow from the knight. He had moved in a blink, slamming his blade down upon me. My legs struggled under the weight of his strength, the ground cracking from the force. I gave a might push, throwing the knight backwards a few steps. I rolled and slammed my fist into the rib section of the armor, the metal crunching, then shattering. The overwhelming smell of rot hit me in the face making me stagger back. The knight looked down at the new hole in its armor, grunted and readied his sword. His footing was perfect, every step was timed perfectly, watching every movement I made, reacting to every advance. His blade swung hard, and I would parry struggling to keep up with his strength. Anzar ran behind the knight and lunged at him, sinking his mighty fangs into the shoulder of the armor. The knight swung his free fist, hitting Anzar hard on the snout, forcing him to let go. In the same breath he charged me again, slamming the pommel of his sword into my chest with one hand and hitting me in the face with his other hand. I staggered backward spitting out a pumpkin seed then charged back into the fight. We exchanged swords for several minutes. The blades dancing against each other, sending sparks with each connected hit. This feeling, I loved it, the challenge of someone fighting with everything on the line. I began to laugh, a splitting cackle that rang out amongst the sounds of blades striking each other. The more we fought, the harder I fought. I could see openings beginning to form in his defense, with my free hand, I grabbed ahold of his chest piece and pulled him towards me, focusing on the hand i grabbed him I imagined horrendous spikes. The sound of metal tearing and groaning as it was ripped apart filled the air. The knight let out a loud gasp as my arm turned into a batch of spikes, penetrating his armor and the flesh underneath. The knight head butt me and kicked me away from him as he stumbled back. Black ooze flowed from his new wounds, thick like tar. His hand covering one of the holes in his armor, his gauntlet covered in the black ooze. The knight fell to one knee and coughed. His hands raised to his helm and slowly removed it. The decayed skin of the knight almost burned when light touched it, the black ooze flowing from his gnarled mouth. His cloudy eyes looked up at the sky and a smile formed on his blackened lips.
"I'm finally going home." He coughed one last time before falling face first.
Sadness welled inside of me for the first time in a long time. A lone knight stood his watch till someone could take him from it. The love he must have held for the people of this city. I walked over to the fallen knight and rolled him over. I folded his arms on his chest and put his helmet between his hands. I laid his sword to rest next to him and knelt.
"May you know peace sir knight." I whispered.
Rea had been watching me, studying my actions as if they had been abnormal.
"You showed him empathy?" She asked.
"Yes, if any was deserving, he was one." I replied standing.
We searched the platform and gathered things we could use. I traded my cloaks for some armor. I looked no different than the average adventurer now, Rea got some new books and tomes to study, while even Anzar got a nice new neck guard. A thick steel band that protected his neck, in the middle was a gryphon emblem. We gathered the supplies and began checking the surrounding buildings, looking for Rea's library. The city was now eerily silent, no birds, no insects nothing made a single sound outside of us whenever we moved something. The devastation this city faced was massive, most of the buildings had burnt down, the ones that hadn't been burnt had been ravaged by time. We found several wyrm skeletons near the adventurer's guild building, along with more bodies. They made the last stand as adventurers here. The guild building was also in rough shape, the only thing we found that had any importance were some old guild records of the area. The chapel was in utter ruin. People had fled there for safety, but after the adventurers fell it was just a massacre. The city manor was completely destroyed, burnt to the studs. Thats when we found it, The library.