7 days to die, p.9
7 Days to Die, page 9
A jarring KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK erupted from the other side of her door.
“IT’S OPEN! Just come in, Rocco.”
Rocco pushed the door open. “Ready, Miss Kelly?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she responded while slumping off the windowsill.
As she followed Rocco back down to the lobby and out into the street, she slipped into her new striped sweater. Sweaters gave her a slight feeling of security.
During their long walk home, Hart suggested they spend their first free day learning what they could about Ravenwood. Rocco insisted, in his typical, hyper aggressive manner, that a visit to the Thewlis Museum would fill them in on thousands of years of history while also being rather fun. Kelly couldn’t even fake being excited. She found museums boring with a capital BORING, but if she was going to find a way out of here, she surely wouldn’t find it in her creepy apartment.
Not to mention, after the events on the ferry Kelly figured the least she could do was tag along to the museum with Hart. She made sure to put on a fake smile.
“Hey! Sleep well?” Hart asked.
“Like a rock. Where’s this museum?”
“On this street but the opposite side of the castle, go left!”
Rocco ran up ahead to lead the way.
Luckily it was still rush hour and they were too busy navigating around the crowds to hold a conversation, Kelly didn’t have any desire to talk. The street looped around to the other side of the city for about three miles before the towering museum came into view.
The Thewlis Museum looked to be made entirely out of black granite. It was tall, long and narrow with four columns in front and a row of stone steps leading to its massive double doors. People flowed in and out of the museum, all seemingly tickled by what they experienced inside.
“I’ve never seen so many people happy about being at a museum,” Kelly muttered to herself.
“You don’t like museums?” Hart asked.
She noted how sharp Hart's hearing was.
“No, I do, I just haven’t been to one in a long time that’s all.”
Rocco turned around before making his way up the steps and shouted back, “you’ll like this one! I promise!”
Kelly and Hart followed Rocco up the narrow steps, weaving through the people exiting.
Hart looked over his shoulder as he walked up the steps, the Ravenwood skyline slowly coming into view.
“I will say, this place has a sort of charm to it.”
Kelly thought so too, if she wasn’t dealing with an actual existential crisis, she’s certain she’d love staying in Ravenwood. Which made it even harder to leave it behind.
“Yeah, it does.”
They reached the top of the steps and Rocco ran inside first, and as was the norm in Ravenwood, what Kelly saw was not what she expected. The museum somehow was even larger inside than it appeared outside. The black granite room was the skeleton of a creature whose arms were so long its fingertips almost touched the floor next to its feet and head just barely grazed the museum roof. She guessed it must have been at least twenty feet tall.
The creature had a strange edgy skull with three long horns protruding from its elbows and the middle of its spine. Kelly speed walked towards the sign mounted in front of it, curious to read up on it this bizarre beast, but stopped dead in her tracks when the fossil slowly lifted its arm and waved at her, smiling. Kelly backed away. The sound of clinking metal clued her into the fact that the creature was secured to the ground via chains.
“Don’t worry! It’s not a real skeleton, those don’t exist in the immortal world! Well, souls don’t have them anyway.”
Trying not to make a sudden move, Kelly looked down at Rocco. With one swipe this creature could end her already very short existence.
“Oh, it won’t hurt you! That's one of the nicest creatures ever!
Hart popped up behind them, “what’s that? A Yeti?”
“If souls don’t have skeletons, Rocco, then what am I looking at?”
“It’s rec-created!”
“What?”
As soon as she asked Rocco, Kelly decided she was better off just reading the sign. She made sure to keep one eye on the creature, just in case.
UTAH CANYON TROLL
Standing at twenty-two feet tall, the Canyon Troll scours the canyons of Utah in search of lost souls. Considered a poltergeist as it doesn’t have an origin in the mortal world, Canyon Trolls need to feed off the souls of the once-living to survive like its cousin the VOTORO. Their fade rate is higher than any immortal creature due to its undeniably kind nature, it often releases the souls that it captures leading to starvation. This model is a scale recreation donated to the Thewlis Museum as an art installation, an estimation of how the beast’s skeleton might be arranged if it had one. Canyon Trolls, like all immortal creatures, do not have skeletons. Each bone was hand crafted by the artist Daniel Moyer using shale.
“Wow,” Kelly said as she backed up to get a better look at the gentle giant.
Rocco hopped onto her shoulder. The Canyon Troll waved at them; Rocco waved back.
“How is it that we don’t have skeletons?”
“We just don’t, no one does. That’s a mortal thing!”
Not only was Kelly actually interested in a museum, but it suddenly occurred to her that she might find the information she was looking for inside. Maybe there’s an exhibit about old passageways, or a ritual that could get her back to the surface, or something. She rushed into the main hallway so quickly that even Rocco had trouble keeping up. Hart was left behind in a cloud of metaphorical dust.
“Hey! You’re skipping everything!”
They flew past an installation labeled Darbity Civil War, an entire room full of immortal creatures and another room dedicated to the city’s most important battles. They finally reached something Kelly thought could be helpful: The First Founding.
Before reading on, Kelly spotted the same crest seen at the chained-boat lake in Cementon. As Kelly leaned in to read about it, Hart's voice bellowed over the hum of the crowd.
“Wait! Damn it you guys!” Kelly and Rocco laughed quietly to one another, but Hart clearly didn’t find the humor in this.
“What’re you trying to ditch me or something?” He asked, joining them in front of the crest.
“No! Take it easy, soldier.”
Kelly was more annoyed than amused now.
“Well, let me know if you want to split up next time. We should stick together.”
Hart turned to read the exhibit next to hers which covered the history of the bear from the crest, trying to avoid eye contact. If there was one thing Kelly hated above anything else, it was adults butting into her life, especially if they weren't asked. She'd survived this far without needing her hand held.
“Alright man. Take it easy.”
Kelly read the sign in front of the crest, cheeks glowing bright red.
THE FIRST FOUNDERS
Herbert, Kanito and Korff.
Herbert, the Northern Spotted Owl who befriended the warlock Kanito on their death day September 11th, 1777, is responsible for both major city founding’s. Upon their mortal deaths, Herbert and Kanito found themselves wandering the foggy battlefield in Brandywine Pennsylvania. Both died from musket fire.
The immortal implications of the Revolutionary War were almost as severe as the mortal, with the immortal landscape being overrun with lost souls. Anyone who died on the battlefield found themselves in a battle just as intense, with Votoros and other poltergeists circling the battlefield like vultures.
This was before the initiation of the controversial Mesis Judgement System (which is still used to this day) where a series of judges grant souls entrance into Para or Katona. Prior to the first founding, gatekeepers stood at the edge of Para defending its cloud-boarders from surface immigrants traveling up via rope pulleys, only letting in close friends and family of those already in this paradise continent in the clouds. Meanwhile, Katonian guards roamed promised the fallen soldiers salvation, only to turn the newly departed into prisoners and slaves. The only people who escaped with their freedom either joined a small surface community or tribe, desperately trying to preserve their souls.
Herbert and Kanito escaped the battlefield together, and over the next few months looked after one another. They had no help in their journey into the immortal world, blindly testing the boundaries of what it meant to be dead. After numerous encounters with Katonian guards trying to violently capture them and spending hours a day fighting off Votoros, Kanito and Herbert grew frustrated at the lawlessness of the afterlife.
Believing that a better future was possible, Kanito began practicing what would now be considered illegal magic to build a cavernous village, hidden by magic, for his community to live in safety. Because moving rock and forming tunnels was expedited by magic, Kanito tried to teach his village the few techniques he’d discovered, but only a small handful could do it. It quickly became clear that most magical abilities are gifts, not learned skills.
With the aid of Kanito’s magical ability, the village eventually tunneled out a large enough space to conceal them. It was there that the village found temporary peace.
Herbert spent his days flying across the eastern United states, searching for lost souls and directing them to the village. Kanito continued his expansion efforts inside the cave to make room for the newcomers. One day, Herbert met a wise old brown bear called Korff and told him of their new village. Relieved, as Korff had been wandering a drift for nearly seventy years, Korff ventured to the cavernous city and met Kanito.
Korff commended Kanito for his efforts and told him of his travels over the last few decades, expressing that Kanito’s village is just the spark the afterlife needed. Bringing his sage wisdom and entrepreneurial spirit to the table, Korff suggested they cease expansion on the current cave village, which the citizens had nicknamed Darbity, and set their sights on a much more ambitious project, a cave system.
Korff and Kanito laid the groundwork for a much larger cave, one that could house the citizens of all the major surrounding villages for the duration of their existence. Korff could then travel the plans to each colony and begin work on a tunnel system. Once the project was complete, anyone could travel to any part of the country without being hunted or attacked.
Kanito started work on their tunnel system immediately, while Herbert continued guiding souls to the cause and Korff made the long trek to the Western United States. As their numbers grew, Kanito’s status as the village’s leader became more concrete. He slowly perfected his skills as a sorcerer, using them to amuse the village children and pull pranks on the village's more serious members. The most memorable of which being when he scared an old fisherman into thinking he’d actually taken the man's nose, ears, and eyes.
When the new cave, deep in the bowels of Kansas was completed, they officially crowned it Darbity and began work on the now famous castle in the cave’s center. The name and culture wouldn’t be revisited until the revolution and Darbity Civil war.
Kelly took a few steps back and studied the crest.
“Holy hell.”
As Kelly moved further down the hallway, she learned more about the induction of the employment system and how the founders bargained with Katona and Para to organize official judgements. She thought it was especially interesting, and morally respectable that Kanito denied residency in Para with the other newly appointed leaders, deciding to stay in Darbity to be with his people. She also learned about the outlawing of magic. Only government officials can be called on to perform magic while building structures, digging or other issues usually related to keeping Darbity’s citizens safe. Something about that didn’t feel right to her. Who was anyone to deny her the ability to do something that came naturally?
It wasn’t until Kelly stumbled into the room detailing the Darbity Civil War that her attention became completely monopolized. In the center of the room was a concrete, lifelike statue of a woman swinging a sword in slow motion and wielding a large shield in the other. The woman’s features were strikingly similar to Kelly’s, but this woman was in her forties, her hair was much longer, and her face battle worn. In addition to the sword and shield, the woman was also clad in metal wrist guards and a chest plate that covered her whole chest and abdomen.
Almost every battle or important event in the room was somehow tied to the woman. Kelly walked up to the statue in awe, watching its cement hair flutter in slow motion. The sign below the statue didn’t disappoint.
ABIGAIL RAVENWOOD, THE SECOND FOUNDER
In 1820 Abigail Ravenwood joined the immortal world in death. Like so many before her she was guided to the underground city of Darbity and introduced to her new immortal reality. Outspoken by nature, Abigail didn’t take well to the recent outlawing of recreational magic. Kanito and his cabinet declared that they would be the only citizens of Darbity authorized to use magic. After decades of teaching sorcery on a grand scale, Kanito had seen dozens of people descend into darkness and felt an outright magical outlaw was the only way to ensure everyone's safety.
Kanito would impart his magical knowledge to six others of his choosing, specifically those who displayed a natural talent for sorcery. As was the tune sung by the rest of Darbity, Abigail heartily disagreed with the ruling, feeling that magic had been vital in bringing people together after death. Upon judgment, she was offered retirement in Para, but shocked everyone and negotiated for a job in Darbity instead. Confused and slightly insulted, the judges urged her not to condemn herself to a life of unnecessary hardship, but Abigail was determined to remain on the ground floor of the brewing conflict in Darbity. As a Darbity citizen, Abigail organized protests along the streets and stormed Korff Castle, now the capitol building, twice before Kanito agreed to meet with her and listen to her requests.
Abigail and her followers wanted the use of recreational magic reinstated completely. Kanito offered the use of approved, magical objects but Abigail insisted on full magical authorization. No agreement could be reached, Kanito grew so disgruntled with the incessant protests that he erected a wall down the middle of the city and banished anyone who defied the city to the western side.
While the western side was now able to live as they pleased, a life divided was no life at all. All city functions were shut down on the western side and crossing the wall was illegal, punishable by imprisonment for up to an eternity in Katona. Kanito agreed to meet Abigail once more to settle everything, and following the final meeting agreed to appoint people in certain positions permission to use magic to maximize workplace efficiency, and free use of any magical objects to all citizens, however they still needed to be inspected by the government and approved.
Both sides agreed and the demolition of the wall was to take place that day, but this decision did not sit well with Kanito’s personally appointed six sorcerers, or The Majystic as they began calling themselves. They were appalled that Kanito folded to the western side and Noxwood, the most aggressive and spiteful of The Majystic did not hesitate upon hearing this (and according to historians of the time) was the one to take Kanito’s soul that day. Theorists suggest that the other five must have helped, but Noxwood saw to it that history reflected him as Kanito’s true, and sole conqueror.
Hundreds of souls were lost on this day as Noxwood took full command of the remaining five sorcerers and the government. Any westerners on site were, by various gruesome methods, faded from existence immediately. Noxwood saw to it that his close circle were the only ones to practice magic and folded the eastern side of Darbity into The Majystic Cult, appointing himself as its leader. Using fear and intimidation, Noxwood would force his new citizens to perform sadistic rituals and live exactly as he saw fit, eliminating anyone who questioned his authority.
Luckily, Abigail and the western side of Darbity pressed on, teaching themselves rudimentary magic and forming a strategy to free the once citizens, now prisoners, of the cult. The war raged for another decade, persisting only with the help of defectors and separatists within the much-maligned cult.
On the final day of the war, the western side of Darbity launched an all-out attack on the eastern side, ending the existence of most western citizens along the way. Luckily, majority control of the city shifted to Abigail and the remaining westerners after the battle. Nearly all the eastern citizens turned on The Majystic once they had the support of Abigail and the west. A duel took place within Korff Castle. Abigail used what little magical abilities she’d learned as well as her trusty sword and shield, which was reinforced with enchantments from Herbert to withstand a beating most could not, Abigail weakened Noxwood almost to the point of fading.
Before she could end Noxwood’s reign, he delivered a deadly blow to Abigail. Noxwood was taken into custody and sentenced to an eternity in Katona, with Areium Prison making special arrangements to elongate his afterlife past its normal expectancy to prolong his suffering.
While Abigail faded that day, her memory did not. She was immortalized when the citizens, now led by the last remaining founder, Herbert, named their re-established city after her. Herbert saw to it that the original arrangement between Abigail and Kanito be honored, and the new magical law was established.
Over the next two hundred years Ravenwood would slowly transform into a hub of Western/American culture as it took on new inhabitants. This “open door policy” paved the way for modern Ravenwood as we know it.
Kelly looked up at Abigail Ravenwood’s slow motion statue with more reverence for a human being than she ever thought possible.
“Cool huh?” Said Rocco.
“It’s more than cool, Rocco. She’s a badass,” said Kelly, electrified.
Kelly turned to read about the first battle Abigail led, something dubbed The Battle of Vadik’s Tomb when she read Hart's voice cut through the crowd.
“Hey you guys! Come over here!”
“What do you think he’s going to hound us about now?” Kelly whispered to Rocco.
“Probably didn’t like the way you were standing,” Rocco whispered back, laughing.
