The Ghost of Red Keep

The air pushed inward as if Kai had just dived into murky water headfirst.

'Did I just see myself dying?' Kai asked himself, panting for air. He couldn't believe what he had seen, or if he had seen something at all. It was all a blur to him as if he had a nightmare, but the grogginess caused by that nightmare after waking up was real, he knew.

Kai's vacant eyes deepened as he tried to remember the prophecy.

'A blood ocean,' Kai recalled. 'It was a world of blood.' Kai straightened his back, shaking off his trance-like state. The young girl had disappeared, and when he looked down, he found the Book had returned to his Inventory by itself too.

'How?' Kai felt confused. He hadn't heard of any Item going back to Inventory by itself. 'But then again, it hasn't been that long since I arrived in the Primordial Tower. There are many things I don't know about.'

Kai looked around and found the candle still burning as dimly as it was before. 'There doesn't seem to be any time difference,' Kai reflected. All the time, he kept taking in a lungful of foul air furiously. His HP bar was all but gone. Yet, with every other puff, Kai could feel himself getting strong comparatively.

'It was a close call,' Kai thought, his face turning ugly. 'If I hadn't come out in time, I would have died while still glimpsing my future in that blood ocean.'

Horrified, Kai put that thought to the back of his mind. There was no other choice. Even if Kai feared his death, the Skill was so potent that it demanded this price of him.

'Price?! Humph!' Kai snorted, finding himself having such thoughts. 'I will gladly pay this price for even an iota of prophecy concerning me. But one time isn't enough.' It wasn't. It was nowhere enough for someone like Kai.

Kai concentrated on refilling his HP then. The task which should have taken him only about 20 minutes, got stretched to 40 because of the reduction in HP regeneration rate. That too because of his Filth Manipulation Ability, otherwise, Kai knew it would have taken him over an hour to bring himself to an optimum state.

Kai invested around 15 minutes to clear his mind of stray thoughts. The notification appeared suddenly.

[Elementary Filth Manipulation: Proficiency 6% (+5%)]

'Good!' Kai nodded proudly. 'I was right. The Proficiencies advance more under extreme situations.'

He took out the Tales of Beedle the Bard. Eyes closed. When they opened, the book was already showing the title of the tale of Cersei Lannister. "Let's do this," said Kai, sensing his heavy heartbeats. "Primordial Theater…"

*

*

Late evening, Red Keep

There were ghosts in the castle, it was known.

From the dungeons to the tallest footing on the castle's towers, one could feel them rustling restlessly like dead unseen sentries. They sighed while tracing the steps once they must have walked afoot. They sang too. They sang of their history, of the violence and mercy; their voice nothing but a discordant cry.

Today Kai joined them.

Today he became one of the ghosts of the Red Keep, and when he did, all ghosts fled away from his presence.

Their rustle became the sound of a hundred rats nibbling garbage and each other. The ghosts' sighs turned into the howl of occasional gusts of wind, finding a gap within thick walls. Only their songs remained; their cries unexplained. Kai couldn't find any reason for what he had been hearing after infiltrating the Tower of Hand.

'It is coming from within the walls,' Kai observed. 'It's like the walls themselves are speaking.'

His back was pressed against a wall as he took long whiffs of the stench coming out of the vial. 'Heh!' Kai sniggered suddenly. 'But I am no poet. There is no need for these moistened words.'

Kai had prophesied three more times after the first one. Every time he made some changes to his plan, to his thoughts, thinking that might change the future, but it didn't. So Kai, not wasting his efforts, had called it a day for the prophecies. He looked incredibly pale now like the melted wax of a candle. An unseen flame threatening to go out any second.

Yet, Kai was content.

He did not know when or how the prophecy would become real, but he knew it would happen. So Kai had taken some necessary precautions. Foremost, he had got the Pain Factor of 0.2 through Chaos at the price of 150 Mission Credits. The amount doubled with every 10% reduction in Pain, and that too because he was still a Contestant of the first Set of the Primordial Tower.

'Pricey!' Kai thought, remembering the notifications. 'Now I only have 25 Mission Credits left. Tch! That's something, I guess.'

Then there was filth.

With raw anxiety, Kai had done something he found tasteless even for him. In his MRB, there was a jar full of magical beast's blood, and a chest full of its meat. It was a source any Contestant would die to get. Kai had ruined it. Yes. He had mixed the sewer's filth into them. The black-brown oily filth had overtaken the redness in sheer repulsion.

'A necessary decision!' Kai shouted in his mind, gritting his teeth in anger. 'What good the taste and freshness of raw meat will do to me if I wouldn't be alive to eat it?'

As he saw his MP bar reaching its max value, he stood up.

Kai's feet left the ground, and Kai levitated, stirring himself through the deserted corridors. Guards were patrolling like bees outside, but the inside of the tower was still relatively unmanned. Whenever Kai encountered some guards, he would use the Smoke Screen, secreting out gas just in the right amount. The gas would thin out soon enough, disguising under the veil of rotten wind. The guards would stay away from that place then, placing the blame on some dead rat.

Kai did not know how to accomplish this Hidden Mission. He had no way to find out any proof against Lysa Arryn and making false ones without any actual bases won't be enough. But for once, Kai had understood the hint given by the System.

"The love of a mother, it said," Kai chuckled, taking a round turn over the tower to the window of the Hand's chamber. "Let's see if Lysa Arryn loves her son as much as that old fool in the sewers."

Haha!

The ghost laughed, and someone, somewhere, shuddered.