Chapter 17: Lifting the Curse
The monster's claws scraped against the coffin lid, the grating sound piercing his eardrums. It was trying to push the lid open again!
The creature's brute strength was truly astonishing. The stone sarcophagus was smooth on the outside, with no point of leverage, yet the Striga managed to hug it and lift the lid by a tiny crack!
Arthur quickly reached up, grabbing the coffin lid, and slammed it shut with a thud.
The monster first let out a scream, then swore with a series of squawks. It clung to the coffin lid and strained repeatedly. It seemed determined not to quit until it clawed Arthur out.
It was an unfair contest. To open the coffin, the monster had to first lift the several-hundred-pound lid, which had no leverage points, before it could even wrestle with Arthur. Arthur, however, only had to straighten his arms, grasp the handle inside the lid, and use his body weight to hold the lid down.
Yes, there was a handle inside the coffin lid, perfect for gripping. Arthur wondered which unlucky fellow had it installed.
"Finally, a moment of rest."
After wrestling for more than half an hour, it gradually became quiet outside the coffin. It seemed that no matter how strange the Striga was, it was still a living creature and would eventually tire.
Arthur sighed in relief, suddenly feeling that the stone sarcophagus wasn't so bad after all it blocked light, muffled sound, and stopped the wind.
Drowsiness crept in, his eyelids growing heavy. He suddenly remembered something: "How long can a person survive in a sealed coffin?"
Geralt could sleep until morning in a stone sarcophagus because he had taken a sleeping draught. More importantly, a Witcher could slow down his metabolism significantly, which Arthur could not do at all. He had just finished a strenuous workout and hadn't even caught his breath; this was a moment of heavy oxygen consumption. He couldn't afford to sleep and 'die' in here…
He bent his knees and pushed the stone sarcophagus lid open a crack to let in fresh air.
"Gah!"
Arthur thought he had moved silently, but the Princess roared and lunged at the crack. He had no choice but to slam the lid down again.
Sigh. If he didn't open the lid, he risked suffocating; if he did, the Princess might take over his sanctuary. The sages long ago had a saying about this situation: a classic case of getting stuck between a rock and a hard place!
"Lux!"
Arthur simply chanted the spell again, lighting up the inside of the coffin to prevent himself from falling asleep unnoticed.
The double-occupancy sarcophagus was full of opulent burial objects, but the Queen's remains were nowhere to be found. He wondered if they had been moved elsewhere or destroyed when the Princess first transformed.
Speaking of which, the Princess was quite pitiful. Cursed at birth, she spent fourteen years as a monster. She was only human for a few years before the curse returned. Counting the years, the Princess had spent far more time as a monster than as a human. Arthur wondered which state she felt more belonging to.
Would Geralt's method even work again?
During this time, he lifted the coffin lid twice more. The outside was quiet; perhaps the Princess had gone somewhere else.
A strange sound filtered through the coffin lid and into his ears, like someone dragging something very heavy across the floor. Could the Princess have opened someone else's coffin? If so, would the curse still be lifted?
While he worried, Arthur suddenly felt a jolt of weightlessness. The stone sarcophagus under him abruptly tilted, and the lid slammed against the floor with a loud bang.
The Princess stood there, carrying a massive pillar, and let out a triumphant shriek. She hadn't left she had gone into the palace and ripped out a column. Using brute strength and the principle of leverage, she had successfully flipped the heavy stone sarcophagus!
This was no ordinary monster; this was a monster that had studied in the world of humans for ten years!
The monster opened its sharp-toothed mouth and roared fiercely at Arthur, seemingly venting its displeasure at having its lair occupied.
Arthur had no time to compete with its volume. He wrapped the remaining iron chains around his hand and delivered a punch:
"Take that!"
The monster's roar cut off abruptly. Arthur's punch was brutal; its mouth full of fangs was left with only a few crooked ones, like bowling pins after a strike.
It went mad with pain, swinging both arms wildly and blindly at Arthur. Stone chips flew everywhere in the large crypt chamber.
Arthur crouched low, using the stone sarcophagus for cover, returning the favor with punches from his chain-wrapped fist. Man and monster fought fiercely, blow for blow.
After dozens of punches, Arthur gradually felt his arms ache and grow weak. His struck shoulder felt as if it were splitting open. He knew he couldn't hold out much longer. He rolled out from behind the coffin, ready to use his agility against the monster.
The crypt was full of stone sarcophagi, perfect for a Tavern Brawler to utilize!
But just as he stood up, his vision suddenly went pitch black. He'd been too caught up in the fight and forgot to dedicate a thread of his concentration to sustaining the magical structure of the light orb…
This magic stuff is so unreliable. No wonder everyone says knights are more formidable than mages!
Arthur grumbled inwardly, but his feet didn't stop moving as he ran toward the crypt entrance. Without illumination, he would simply be a punching bag in the dark tomb!
Arthur fled the crypt. When the monster didn't follow, he felt a strange sense of confusion. Given the speed the Striga had demonstrated earlier, he shouldn't have been able to escape the tomb without being dragged back he had been prepared to unleash his Battle Cry again.
Could the monster have been scared off by the beating?
It was the monster's bad luck that the sack it had kicked away earlier was not far from the crypt entrance. Arthur retrieved two more iron chains and draped the remaining silver nets over himself, instantly regaining some confidence.
Looking at the sky, which was slowly turning pale, he knew this was the critical moment for lifting the curse. Even if the Princess had crawled back into the coffin, he had to drag her out!
He cast the Lux cantrip again, lit a torch, and walked back into the crypt a second time.
"Ya…"
The monster's voice echoed in the crypt. Perhaps because of its broken teeth, its voice was much raspier.
Then, Arthur saw it: the monster hugging the pillar and trying to right the stone sarcophagus.
He realized he probably hadn't needed to come back in:
Originally, the sarcophagus wasn't resting directly on the ground but was supported by something like wooden sleepers, which gave the monster the space to use leverage. Now, with the sarcophagus overturned, the upper rim of the opening had smashed a deep groove into the ground. Not even a needle could be slipped in, let alone a pillar.
"Yar!"
Seeing Arthur enter, the monster turned sharply, its voice filled with deep resentment. It seemed to be saying: If it weren't for you, how would I have fallen into such a pathetic state!
Arthur stuck the torch into the ground nearby and held up the iron chain in his hand: "Do you want to keep fighting?"
The Princess spread her arms and stepped forward, but her speed was incomparable to before. And in the face of a net flying directly for her head, not being fast enough meant failure.
The Princess was entangled once more, but this time, the net was accompanied by the majestic torrent of the Battle Cry.
A mind full of dread and fear could no longer resist the roar.
The Princess screamed and desperately crawled toward her stone sarcophagus, but before she could make two steps, her legs were entangled by the iron chains. Her claws scraped two deep trenches into the floor, yet she could not advance a single step further.
A moment later, she suddenly ceased all struggling and lay motionless on the ground. Her figure began to slowly shrink, shifting toward the outline of a human female.
Arthur stood cautiously at a distance. He remembered the story Triss had told: at dawn, the Princess returned to human form. Geralt assumed the un-cursing was complete but was nearly beheaded by the maiden's final, desperate claw strike.
"Let Velerad's men check on you. I'm not coming over. I'll wait right here." Arthur muttered. The final struggle had drained his last reserves of stamina; now every muscle in his body ached.
The sound of the cockcrow rang out from afar. Arthur was flooded with relief. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier until they quickly closed.
And just as he fell asleep, a glowing storm, similar to what a griffin generated, emanated from the prone Princess, surging madly into his body.
Text floated lonely in the darkness:
[Incentive Event: Facing the Curse]
[Congruence has been raised to 80/100]
[Reward Specialty: Dungeon Explorer]
[Your senses are enhanced in the dark]
.........................
AN: For early access to advanced 80 chapters on P-a-treon:
Join now: P-a-treon/Chaos_God
(Just remove the- hyphen to access normally)
Thank You so much For your Support and for Reading!