Midara: Requiem [High Fantasy Necromancer fun]

Suggested Listening

Elruin took some time to think about the offer, but in the end that was a secondary concern. "Apologize for hurting Cali."

The inky black spirit drifted in place for a moment. "First, I'd like to go on record as saying I did nothing to hurt her, save what was necessary to get her away from the people trying to kill her."

"Which you used to trap her with a compulsion spell that hurt her."

"She had a choice," he countered. "I didn't think an introduction was all that much to ask for saving her life, and ensuring she couldn't turn around and have me destroyed afterwards. And don't say 'gratitude', your species doesn't know the concept, not when it comes to abominations like us. Or did you forget Mister Clackybones?"

Elruin's argument hit a wall, just like that. Even Cali had insisted on destroying her beloved horsey, after it had helped save her life. "No, I would never..."

She couldn't imagine it would be much different for this ghost, who was so much stronger and smarter than any undead she'd met before. How much knowledge would be lost with him if he was killed a second time?

"Ell? What is he saying?" Cali asked. She remained sitting, but without the truth spell going out of its way to force her to act, she was recovering rather than getting worse. Still needed days, perhaps weeks, of rest to come back from her injuries.

It was then that Elruin realized the ghost wasn't speaking the same language as them. It was the same language of the dead that she'd heard before, but from a fluent speaker. "He's not going to apologize." Elruin wasn't about to explain the reason behind that refusal, nor why she stopped arguing for it.

"Can't say I'm surprised," she said. "You're planning to accept its help, aren't you?"

"I haven't decided." Elruin hesitated, but decided Cali deserved better. "If I do, I'm sorry. I know you don't like them."

"That's one way to put it." Cali struggled, forced herself into a standing position by leaning against one of the many trees. "The abominations are hate and cruelty given tangible form. They cannot be saved, they know nothing of love, kindness, or mercy. If you would grant succor, end the twisted corruption which denies them peace at the end of life's trials."

"Which holy text did you pull that one out of, Sis?" Scratch spoke so Calenda could understand.

"It's in the Books of the Great Cycle," Calenda answered. "Book Five, to be precise. Are you going to tell me it's wrong, now? Because if you are, I'd like to hear you swear on it. The point is, you can't be trusted."

This brought up a number of good points to Elruin. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You can't." Scratch showed no sign of shame, apology, or even defiance. It was a statement, nothing more or less than that. "Everything your big sister quoted is true, to my knowledge. I cheated nature itself, told both life and death to go shove their heads up their own asses and asphyxiate. What you can trust is my self-interest. I've defied death for centuries thanks to necromancers like you, and I intend to do so until I see no reason to continue. Chances are you'll be long gone by then."

"This has something to do with the song you want her to sing?" Cali asked.

"Resonance. You have a way to, umm, hide yourself." Elruin didn't know if there was a word to describe the concept she was putting together. "You're planning to synchronize with me, then use the fact that I'm alive to trick death into thinking you're still alive?"

"You have learned something in that school," Scratch said. "I was expecting to spend an hour explaining this to you."

"I have a friend who talks lots about how to play with resonance." Elruin was certain Lemia would love talking to Scratch, if not for the 'undead abomination' concerns. "We've done a lot of experimenting. Will there be any side effects? Will it harm me or give you some sort of power over me, in any way?"

Scratch drifted up to about Cali's height. "The effects of synchronizing will be weaker, since it's artificial, so don't expect much of the usual benefits." He spoke the language of the dead, denying her information that might lead to guessing more of his nature and weaknesses. "In theory, synchronizing with the undead makes it impossible to use creation magic, but since I only know how to synchronize with necromancers, it's never been a concern."

Elruin no expert on synchronization, artificial or otherwise. Such a magic sounded fascinating, and difficult, so she wasn't surprised it was limited in scope. In the end, it just made magic easier with one another, and harder to hurt each other. What effect synchronizing with the undead might have on casting life magic, she could only guess at, but since she couldn't use life magic, it was irrelevant.

"One final condition." Cali would have to live with never getting that apology from Scratch. "You swear never to hurt my friends and allies."

"I can't make that agreement." No hesitation in his answer, but he spoke so Cali could understand. "My priorities are my wellbeing, then yours. If one of your friends jeopardizes either of us, I will do everything in my power to end the threat. I can promise to do my best to do no more harm than necessary, then you can decide if we should do worse." For his next sentences, he switched back to their secret tongue. "You should be more careful when giving absolute orders with forces that have no ability to consider nuance. Like your dollies, for example. Someone might get hurt."

It was true, people had died over her lack of foresight. "Acceptable. No more harm than necessary to stop them from hurting us. Talk to them first, if possible. They're not friends if they want to hurt me."

"You have your deal for as long as I am in your service, I make no promises for after the contract's inevitable conclusion. Is that everything? I'd like to hear your song before you die of old age."

Suggested Listening

So Elruin sang. First, she sang to herself, drawing her power out and blanketing the area, then she sang Cali's essence to protect from the necromantic energy of her power, or more to keep the energy from going near her in the first place. She sang around the horses, tied to trees, so that they didn't struggle overmuch when they stepped to the next stage. She sang to the slow taint of undeath seeping through the captive prisoner, to prevent him from dying before he was interrogated.

Then, with the stage set, she sang to Scratch. The spirit was by far the densest, most complex ball of necromantic force she had ever witnessed. In terms of raw power, he wasn't much stronger than she was, weaker than Cali by a notable amount, but he was by far the strongest undead she had witnessed.

Then he sang back, twisting her notes into his own. She adapted, adopted, and changed the notes again. The interplay took some time, as they first established, then negotiated, the nature of their shared song. Unlike Mister Clackybones, who had no choice but to allow her access to the totality of his being, Scratch was aware of his nature, and yielded but a small portion of himself in the song.

He sang of the last month, of watching the risks Calenda took in the wilderness to protect the empire she swore herself to. He sang of the merciless violence of those on both sides of the conflict. He sang of gore, and glory, and it was as if Elruin was there watching as it happened.

She sang back, of the farm she'd been born on, and the first of the dead who protected her. She sang of her cousins' farm, and the babies she helped save from the bad men. She sang of Mister Clackybones, which she was forced to destroy for Cali's sake.

The spell Scratch showed her was complicated, but it wasn't complex. Each part had a clean, understandable function. Elruin was convinced that any Revealed mage could follow the general process and get similar results, by sharing their feelings through their magic. Perhaps it didn't require magic at all, an emotional conversation might suffice, were it meaningful enough. Magic did accelerate the process, however.

In the end, they sang together to the energy they released, and called it back to themselves. In minutes, there was no trace left of their magic that Elruin could detect. This trick, too, seemed like something Elruin could do herself, though it was far more difficult than the synchronizing magic.

"Ell? Are you okay?" Cali remained against the tree, but reached out to her.

"Yeah, I'm not hurt." She reached up, touched her cheek, to realize she'd been crying. "It's an emotional spell." What caught her off guard was that Cali was so concerned for her, despite the damage the young woman was in, herself.

"Felt like it," Cali said. "Reminded me of the first time I saw ballet after having my Revelation."

"I've never seen a ballet before. Maybe we can go after you get better?"

"Okay, enough feelings!" Scratch cut in. "You ladies can do that on the other side of the wall where I won't be going. How about we see what this reject of life feels? Get nice and deep in his psyche, learn all his darkest secrets." He climbed into the man tied to the tree, by sliding into his mouth feet first. He didn't have to do it that way, but he liked the visuals.

"When I was a kid, I loved eating my own boogers." Scratch now had the man's voice. "I never stopped."

"Ugh," Cali muttered. "He's right, though. We're racing a clock, let's get what we can out of the dead man."

For the next half hour, Calenda interviewed the mind-enslaved victim, while Elruin had little to do but watch him run down the list of secrets great and small without sign of hesitation or fear while the taint spread from point to point through his body. His extremities died first, then it infected his blood which spread the sickness to his heart, lungs and brain. Soon, every time he breathed, a wisp of taint escaped his mouth.

Elruin began the process of cleansing as they went, to extend the victim's life and prevent the poison from reaching Cali. Now that she was watching taint in action, she could understand why it was so feared. If left unchecked, it was a threat to all life in the world. Calenda was right about how dangerous it was, but Elruin knew it could be controlled. Scratch controlled it, as could she if given time to learn.

Her ability to cleanse taint did nothing but slow the man's death, however, and soon the mouth stopped moving. Scratch climbed back out through the drooling orifice. "Hope that's enough, 'cause he ain't up for talkin'."

"Better than I've gotten from anyone else," Cali admitted. She grunted as she forced herself to stand again. "In part because torture and Truthsaying can do only so much, and in part because this guy was close to Lord Claron, so he's witnessed information few people possess. Going to be interesting, explaining how I got all this info, or survived an assault by Claron, of all people."

"Is he strong?" Elruin read a little bit about the half-sibling to Lady Juna and Lord Garit, but his personal power wasn't mentioned, just his political position. Still, she kept humming her notes, to the dead man and the taint left behind. Cali couldn't use her magic, Scratch didn't care, and she was going to get a new dolly that nobody would know to take away from her.

"One of the top ten in the empire," Calenda said. "Maybe the top five, hard to say at that level. Luck and surprise are the only reasons I'm here right now."

"Don't matter how strong you are, anyone can die if caught off guard." Free of a body, Scratch took to the air again. "And he'll be soft for a while. Dying takes a lot out of you, coming back is worse. If we assume it was Claron in the first place."

"True, could have been another powerful fire mage, and some more illusions." Cali lumbered over to one of the horses. "Do you know for certain it was him?"

"Don't think there were any illusions," Scratch said. "But that's not my expertise. Get me in sight of the real one, and I'll be able to tell you for certain."

"Good, I can use that. Ugh." She began the slow, painful process of climbing onto the saddle despite her injuries. "I'll emphasize that I can't trust what I saw. Any part may have been illusion magic, and I was unconscious for half the fight. All I know to be fact is my team was murdered, there was at least one illusionist, someone who appeared to be Lord Claron was there, and something spared my life. Perhaps it was all a setup to make Claron look guilty of treason?"

"I'd say I wasn't involved, but you wouldn't believe me."

"No, I believe you, you're too untrustworthy to be a spy." Cali gasped for breath now that she was on her mount. "And I believe it was him. But no investigator, including myself, would trust my testimony under these circumstances." She began to guide her horse toward the gates, leading the three others and the bodies they carried along.

"Will Lord Claron get away, then?" Elruin gathered her treasures in order to follow behind. Soon, her new dolly would move, freed from its bonds and obedient to Scratch until she could come visit them again. Scratch would take good care of the dolly, and keep it out of trouble.

"Either Claron's guilty, or someone's trying to smear his name, either way it's information that will be taken straight to the queen." Calenda stopped talking for some time, in order to catch her breath. They were almost to the gates before she could breathe again. "She'll have him interviewed. He's taken into custody, or proven innocent, by the end of the day."

The gate opened before the pair made it to the alcove, and several guards rushed out. "Scout Calenda? What happened?"

"Long story. Alert the generals, all of them." Calenda lay forward on her horse, closing her eyes. "Ell? The seamstress southeast of the park has something for you to pick up."

Elruin was lost in the flurry of soldiers, healers, and others taking care of the situation. The bodies and horses were taken somewhere, though Elruin would have to wait to learn from Cali where, but nobody thought to confiscate her new magical robe. With promises that Cali would be taken care of, and that there was nothing she could do to help for now, she began the long walk back to the College.

She did take the time to stop by the seamstress' store that Cali mentioned. It was nothing special, a business being run in someone's home. Elruin tapped on the door, as was custom.

A young boy, younger than Elruin, opened the door. He put his head down, then turned around and yelled. "Grandmother, you have a customer."

"Come in!" A woman's voice shouted from inside.

The boy stepped aside, careful not to look directly at Elruin's face. It wasn't a necessary social custom, so Elruin assumed he was shy.

The woman Elruin assumed was owner of the shop sat in the living area, near a collection of fabrics and torn clothes. She was perhaps the oldest woman Elruin had ever seen, with deep wrinkles and hair that bordered on white, with enough gray to show this wasn't the hair color she was born with. "My, that is quite the garment. I'm afraid I don't work with magic clothes, nor bloodstains."

"No, sorry ma'am," Elruin now took the submissive posture. "I'm Elruin. Lady Calenda sent me to pick something up."

"Ah, Priestess Calenda did make a special request, and mentioned you." The woman remained sitting, but the little boy ran into a side room. "I was expecting her to pick it up herself."

"She's indisposed." Elruin wasn't sure how much she should tell this woman or anyone else about the events of the day. "Her chores are demanding." Nobody could call that statement a lie, though it told nothing of value.

"I suppose they are, if she sent you to get your own gift."

The boy came back, carrying a large stuffed animal in the shape of a horse. He set it on its feet, where it collapsed.

Elruin picked the soft, pliable stuffed animal up. "It's perfect!" She hugged the stuffed toy and cried for the second time that day. "I'm going to call you Mister Squishybones!"


=====

A/N- End of Chapter One, complete with happy ending and the hook for Chapter Two established.

I swear, all resemblances to Ar Tonelico are coincidental. Those games did not exist when I dreamed up Midara. Though Starcraft did, and Archons were an early inspiration for the first concept of Pairbonding. Power Overwhelming, indeed. In fact, the first first iteration of Elruin was born in a short-lived Starcraft fanfic that made it about 300 words then died because even my teen self knew it was dumb. But I kept Elruin, because I wanted to hug her. And give headpats. And have zombie slaves do my housework for me.

Love Scratch's personality. Evil. Knows it. Gives Zero Fucks.

Two new spells. If this was a 4x game, "artificial synchronization" would be the most exploitable spell in the entire setting. A means to give every unit a minor stat buff when near any other unit? Yummy. Elruin's wrong about "any" mage being able to use it... some can't, but most of them are utter sociopaths.

"Consume Energy" is potentially useful as a way to clear necromantic energies *and* boost mana. Useful for post-battle efficiency. Won't have much combat applicability until later.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin returned to her school carrying a blood stained robe, a stuffed animal, and a pocket full of sarite. It was a small wonder nobody stopped her until she got to the campus gates.

The female guard approached her first. "Miss, where did you get that?"

Elruin held up her new prized toy. "This is Mister Squishybones. My elder sister had him made for me."

"I was referring to the robe. Where did you get it? And why is it covered in blood stains ?"

Elruin pulled her horsey back, since it was clear the guard wasn't nice and didn't like her new favorite gift. "It belonged to a bad lady. She's dead. Now it's mine."

"Entek," the guard whispered under her breath. "Where is the dead 'bad lady'?" As she spoke, she made a gesture behind her back. The male guard responded by generating a pair of quick light bolts at the sky, one orange and another yellow which soon turned pink.

"She's in the wilderness," Elruin said. "Lady Calenda's friend killed her." Meanwhile, Elruin watched the sparkling magic traveling into the sky. It was more complex than the spells her brother used, and was designed so the light could only be seen from certain angles below.

"Wait here for a minute, there are people who need to talk to you."

"But I need to put my stuff in my room," Elruin said. "And talk to Lemia."

"I'm sure it can wait for later," the guard said. "This is important."

Soon, Elruin was surrounded by a dozen officers, and had no idea what was going on. "Is something wrong?"

"We need you to come with us," the woman who now appeared to be in charge said. "Your cooperation, or lack thereof, will be noted." She put her hand on the saber she had at her hip.

"Yes, ma'am," Elruin knew she was in trouble, even if she didn't know why. She also knew that she couldn't fight her way out, not with this many trained officers nearby. "Please, tell me what I did?"

Now that she was under control, the officer preferred not to give the girl a reason to resist. "We'll explain once we get to the station. Don't worry, I'm sure it is all a big misunderstanding." No reason to frighten the child too much, and she'd long had experience lying to suspects.

Soon, they reached the station. The moment Elruin stepped through the entrance of the building, she felt her strength sapped. She was at once rendered weak, slow, and half-blinded. Now she struggled, out of panic and confusion, but it was for naught.

The soldiers had experience with blanket antimagic, and were adults with combat training, while Elruin without her magic was strong for her age, but was still a twelve year old child. With a woman holding both of her shoulders, the stuff she carried was taken, then she was pushed into one of the interrogation rooms where she spent what felt like all day alone in the room before the door opened.

Another woman walked in, and now Elruin was glad to know she hadn't been left to die in here. "Can I leave, now?"

"Leave?" The woman's voice reminded her of Cali's, right before she started to torture someone. "You're a criminal, why would you think we'd let you leave?"

"But I didn't do anything bad!" She almost began to cry, fearing they might have found Scratch or her dolly while she was in here.

"Let us suppose you told the truth about how you came into possession of blood soaked magical clothing," the woman showed no sign of caring about Elruin's argument or fears. "The looting of a corpse is a crime. Theft, if you're lucky. Murder if you're found to have anything to do with the prior owner's death, or accepted it from someone you knew was responsible for the prior owner's death."

"I..." Elruin did know that Cali and her friends killed the woman.

"However, you are young," the woman continued. "Not so young that you can't be punished by the law, but young enough that we're more interested in who you were involved with that would use you as an accomplice. I know you claimed Scout Calenda provided them to you, but I've known her for years. It's difficult for me to believe she would be involved in such an act. Adopted daughter or no, if she wanted to commit a crime, she wouldn't be so sloppy. Who really gave the clothes to you?"

"But it was." Elruin lied, but there were no Truthsayers thanks to the antimagic that still suppressed her abilities. She couldn't tell the truth about Old Scratch, not without putting him at risk and facing whatever horrible punishment Cali refused to talk about that might happen to her for working with the undead.

The woman's face was neutral, but her years of experience interrogating prisoners gave her the certainty that Elruin was hiding something. The first thing an innocent person did when arrested was ask for a Truthsayer to prove their innocence. It was no longer a question of if, but how, the eventual confession would go. "I have sent a messenger to find her, we'll see what she has to say about this."

She was torn about the assertion that Calenda was involved. On one hand, she knew the woman was good at what she did, and losing her meant losing an important asset for the entire empire. On the other hand, the Scouts played too fast and loose with the law for her preference, and busting even a minor noble served to remind the rest that none of them were above Enge's law. On the balance, it didn't matter. So long as the truth would be uncovered, and justice was brought upon the perpetrators, she would be satisfied.

They waited in silence, a child losing hope that she'd ever be free again, and an interrogator watching the progression of the breakdown that would see everything revealed. To her, it was far more satisfying than relying on torture, though torture was admittedly faster.

Both their heads snapped toward the door when it was opened by a younger guard. "My apologies, Sergeant, General Juna is here, it seems there's been a misunderstanding."

Suggested Listening

Juna stepped through the door, even as the Sergeant stood to meet her. Elruin felt the smallest flicker of her magic return, as Juna's power was enough to tip the balance and overcome the antimagic which held her own back. So little that Elruin was certain that this room could hold Juna's power if there weren't others in here as well.

"General, Sir?" Outranked and confused, she wasn't certain what question she should ask. "What is this about?"

"A series of blunders," Lady Juna said. She looked at the guard who led her into the room. "Some of this is sensitive information."

"Understood, Sir." the guard backed out, closing the door as she left.

Lady Juna waited a few seconds. "To start, Scout Calenda returned from a mission earlier today, wounded. She came with several articles of equipment, four horses, and the bodies of Scout Lanine and Scout Crela."

"They will be remembered." Meanwhile, she was cursing a storm in her mind. Two Scouts lost was a tragedy, both on a personal level and for all of Engeval.

"We are trying to keep things quiet, for now," Lady Juna said. "We're still not entirely certain what happened out there. It will take some time for Scout Calenda to recover, and some part of it is because because illusion and mind magics were used. Which is where Lady Elruin was caught up in the mess."

"Right." This was a situation the sergeant was more comfortable with. "She claims Scout Calenda gave her the robes that she got from a dead woman."

"We have every reason to believe the robes did come from one of the Ghosts of Sorvel who were killed by the scout force," Juna said. "And the girl did help bring the evidence inside the city. Where she got the impression she could keep it, I do not yet know. Perhaps, in her altered mental state, Scout Calenda gave unclear instructions?"

Pure speculation mixed with half-truths, but truth mattered less to Juna than perception.

"In any case, the killing was just, as was the taking of the robes for investigative purposes. How they wound up in Lady Elruin's possession is muddled, but as I understand it she took them almost straight to her dorm, with no attempt to hide their origins. I imagine if it were a crime rather than a misunderstanding, she would have been more evasive."

"It does explain some oddities," the sergeant admitted. "You're saying she walked through the gates carrying the robes?"

"That I can confirm," Juna said. "I believe the soldiers, in their concern over Scout Calenda's condition, failed to pay proper attention to her adoptive daughter. I consider that a failure on my part to instill proper discipline and situational awareness. This will not happen a second time. But surely the child has suffered enough for my mistakes, wouldn't you agree?"

"Of course, Sir, we won't keep her any longer."

"See to it she gets her possessions back, save for the robes. Those come with us, as part of an investigation that cost two good women their lives."

By the time Elruin's stuff was returned and she was allowed to leave, she expected everyone else to be gone. Instead, Lady Juna stood waiting for her not far from the station. She bowed her head as expected. "Thank you."

"You get into the most fascinating predicaments," Lady Juna said. "Taking the robes is one thing, I can see why you'd want to keep them, but you should have covered your tracks better. Or at all."

"You're not mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad? It gives me an opportunity to get some fresh air and have a conversation with a friend I haven't seen for some time." Juna began to walk, leading Elruin along on a path that would take her to her dorms.

Something made Elruin suspect she'd have been better off back in the police station with the sergeant. "Sorry, I've been studying hard. I want to be able to help Lady Calenda and you."

"You're putting too much on your shoulders," Lady Juna said. "You're a child, you should take the time to act like one before it's too late. Trust us adults to handle problems while you learn the way of the world without getting involved in dangerous situations. Your naivety will only get you in trouble, like today."

Elruin felt smaller with every word, so she just kept quiet and walked.

"Like today. I'm aware that Scouts and Guards sometimes take... let's call them 'trophies'... from those they have to kill." Lady Juna kept looking ahead. "It's not entirely illegal. There is a process of claiming items for an investigation, then once the investigation's over, we must get rid of the articles somehow. Most is sold or donated, but an officer might request something interesting. Taking something and walking away with it, however? That is a crime."

"Sorry," Elruin kept looking down. "Does that mean I can have it back after you're done with it, please?"

"Not now, no," Lady Juna said. "You've been seen by a number of people with the outfit, and the blood which was on it. If we give it back to you, people will start to ask questions, which leads to answers we'd prefer not to give. See, some people want the practice of trophy-taking ended in its entirety, so it's best to not call attention to it."

"Oh." Elruin wasn't studying law, she'd have to take Juna's word. "What about sarite?" The police gave her shards back to her when she was let go, which seemed strange to her then. Not that she said anything.

"Still a crime, but impossible to enforce," Juna said. "We can't prove if a stone was taken from a bandit or straight from some slain beast. Wasting Truthsayer time on every shard in the city would be impossibly expensive."

Elruin nodded along. Practice with weakened sarite shards at her school had made it clear that sarite's natural magic made it difficult to influence with other magic, like scrying.

"Besides, we want sarite in human hands," Juna continued. "Burying sarite has a nasty habit of, well, back when I was not much older than you, I had to fight a fox that launched acid from its posterior. Don't laugh, people died. Some careless soul died with a powerful shard, which the animal swallowed. I still have that shard, it's one of my best."

That was good to know, though she still had to deal with the shards in her pocket. Her school was now in sight, a sign that perhaps the conversation would be over soon. "Thank you, again."

"You'll find a way to pay me back, some day," Juna said. "But while we're on the subject of sharing knowledge, I admit there is one thing I haven't been able to discern. Why did Scout Calenda go to you, first?"

Elruin's stomach clenched. "Pardon?"

"She entered the gates, told the Guard nothing, traveled here, found you, and took you back into the wilderness with her for the better part of an hour. Then returned, with the bodies of her team members, horses, and other assorted materials. Why?"

"I..." Now Elruin knew she was in trouble, since she couldn't shake Lady Juna off so easily. "Maybe it has to do with the mind spell?"

"Do tell," Juna commanded.

"I got a look at the spell as it was working," Elruin admitted. "It was really complicated, and I'm not a mind mage." Juna remained silent, while Elruin remembered what Kasa said about Truthsaying being a common spell for the magically skilled. Juna was perhaps the most skilled mage she had ever met. "I think she was trying to trick the spell. I mean, I know she was, she told me little bits the whole way, but I think that's why she didn't tell the guards. She couldn't, the spell wouldn't let her."

"But she could tell you?"

"As you said, I'm young, maybe the spell meant she couldn't tell an adult?"

"Seems like too obvious a loophole."

It did sound obvious. "She said something about being more clever than smart," Elruin offered. "Or maybe the spell was about not telling. She didn't tell me. She asked me to come outside the walls with her, which I did because she saved me and I trust her. If she asked a guard to come with, she'd want to know why, which Cali couldn't say."

"And once you saw the bodies and stuff, you'd be the one who brought it in for everyone to see, not her," Juna concluded. "Still, seems too obvious. But go ahead and keep your secrets for now, since you value them so highly. And try not to be such a shut-in in the future, I've come to enjoy our chats.

"Yes, ma'am."

Juna turned and went the path that would take her to her own mansion eventually, leaving Elruin behind with her heart hammering in her chest. She would need to be more careful from now on.

=====

A/N- Never fails to amuse me when voters forget to consider Elruin's current appearance, even after being reminded. I mean, sure, a twelve year old getting dirty or torn up clothes isn't too big a deal. Children are known for being messy and careless. But carrying around bloody clothing? Raises a red flag or three.

And unlike a D&D game, Midara has laws against grave robbing and otherwise looting corpses. It's a crime in our world, too. And for much the same reasons. It's difficult to prove you stole change from a dead man's pockets, but when you start stealing his pants... yeah...

 

Suggested Listening

Somewhere, deep in the wilderness, lay a temple of finest marble. Crafted by gods, shaped to be the seat of power to a world-empire, it stood abandoned for centuries, with but automatons to maintain the art, beauty, and mystic mechanisms that could grant one the power to walk from one end of the world to the other with but a handful of gestures.

Long had it stood, a testament to men who would rule man, nature, and the laws of reality. Longer had it remained in ruin, its makers long since dead and its inhabitants reduced to shadow and mythos.

A tall, slender woman of ashen skin and wings of smoke walked through this forgotten fane to the wildest dreams of Man. Nearby, the beasts lurked, but they had learned not to approach the being of power which masqueraded as a thing of flesh. The bodies between the portal which brought her to this place, and the throne she approached, were her own shrine to the wisdom of caution.

A flick of wings took her atop the marble platform once called the Pillar of Creation. She thought little of those ancient mortals, but today was a day of nostalgia for those they left behind. "Oh, Lord of Darkness," her voice oozed with sarcasm. "I bring you news."

"Ugh, must you call me that every time? It wasn't funny the first time, it hasn't become funny in the centuries since." He shifted, stretching sinuous wings and muscle that had not moved in years.

"My apologies, would you prefer to be called the Son of the Blighted? Or perhaps He Who Casts Darkness on Darkness?"

A burst of black lightning shot from his fingertips, missing her by inches. Several deep crevasses were added to the cracked marble floor. They began pulling themselves back together, the shattered stone stitching itself back together one fleck of dust at a time. One day, the magic would deplete itself, and the pillar would crumble as had the dreams of its creators.

"I told you never to speak those names!"

"Why, My Lord, I am certain you have not." She appreciated the damage to the stone, dead purity wounded yet struggling to survive. Her opposite in all conceivable ways. "The mortals invented them between my last visit and today."

"Oh?" He settled back down on his throne of ebony, set atop the pillar of Ivory. "My mistake. There are so wearingly many, I cannot be expected to keep track of them all."

"You should be more careful, My Lord," she taunted. "Any closer, and you'd be forced to do these tasks for yourself."

"Here to beg for your death yet again?" He shifted, waking slowly. "I thought you grew tired of this game you play."

She had, long ago, but it had not yet become the 'game' her master pretended. She swallowed, then called on all her strength for the final act of accusation and hate. "Freedom does not appear possible, which leaves me one refuge."

"As I told your predecessors, if you can find one more competent than yourself, I shall grant you freedom or death, whichever you desire."

"I fear you ask the impossible, My Lord." No pride, no anger, she had not the resolve left for more than resignation.

"I fear the same, and yet I do not stop." He clenched his fingers, crushing the obsidian throne upon which he sat. Its own magic set about repairing the damage inflicted, silent and without judgment. At one time, there was finery on this throne, of deep red and gold, with lush cushions such that even a mortal would not be uncomfortable seated here. They had rotted to dust centuries ago. "I suppose that trait, we have in common."

"Yes, My Lord." Her wings wafted around her, knowing what would come next.

Now that he was approaching true wakefulness, he wanted only to get the remaining tasks completed so he could return to his long slumber. "Now, what is the true reason you come to me?"

"Scratch has found himself a new host."

"Is that so?" He huffed, what passed for a chuckle. "For a dead man, he has been quite active. This makes one from him per century for how long, now?"

"Four, if we measure by years rather than turnovers of calendar," she said. "A less cynical person might believe he's trying to kill you."

"He does have a habit of finding the most fascinating toys, doesn't he?" In spite of himself, he found he was growing someone excited, or at least amused. "I believe the last one was a eunuch, and the one before was the arctic mermaid?"

The most recent to have inflicted pain upon her in battle. If she had been but a little stronger, she might have been released from this abominable farce. "This one appears to be a little girl of twelve years."

Another soft chuckle, this one almost genuine, escaped his lips. "I've forgotten the last child we've had. When the decade is up, I'll be ready."

"My Lord, I don't believe we'll need wait that long. This one is ready for cultivation, now."

"So young?" He grinned, and acid dripped down from a jaw that might have been handsome centuries prior. "Then we set the stage for what promises to be an unusual Deathbringer."

"I have prepared the Bean Sidhe in anticipation of your orders. Initial scouting suggests the region has few external threats, but is on the cusp of rebellion. I also located three artifact caches in the region that might play well in our plans."

"Then fan the flames of revolution throughout..." he hesitated. "Where are they?"

"The Empire of Engeval," she answered. "The Temple knows it as Ciron's Citadel."

"Right, the god of the centaurs," her dark lord muttered. At his mental command, the ancient machinery returned to life for a short time, to force open a portal network built by the Goddess of the Void, then harnessed by her descendants. They were long gone, but he would put their work to use destroying all which they had brought to the world. "Such vibrant creatures, perhaps..."

"I'm sorry, My Lord," she cut him off. "They were unable to adapt to the changes and went extinct almost four hundred years ago."

"Go!" He shouted, as he swung his fist backward into his throne. The stone exploded with enough power that shards of obsidian sank into the marble pillar.

For the first time in aeons, she felt fear in the face of the being that she had just tried to goad into killing her. She fled through the opened gateway and found herself standing in the air above a stable, but still-hot caldera.

"Ciron, awaken." She demanded of the volcanic deity. "The Goddess Kalla demands it."

A shift of energies, a preparation of defenses and retaliation. With a wave of Kalla's hand, ice coated the interior of the volcano. It was a minor display of power, for either of them. The speed and ease at which she performed that feat marked her as stronger than the being below her. The chaos unleashed by her magic would be felt for years, but chaos served Kalla's purpose.

"Awaken or I slay you where you sleep and drive what remains of your sheltered children into the true wilderness."

Shockwaves rumbled across the land, startling civilian and priest alike as Ciron responded to the threat of the interloper with what passed for acquiescence. He would obey her, so long as she left his people alone.

"Impossible," she said. "But with your cooperation we can limit the casualties to, perhaps, only a million or so."

More rumbles, more echoes of power, and the stink of priests begging guidance began wafting in on the aether winds. Now that their god served her, it was time to begin her true work.

=====

A/N- This guy clearly has no plot relevance at all, and is only here for worldbuilding purposes. You will neither see nor hear from them ever again.

The power to freeze a volcano with casual effort means never having to apologize. Unless you piss off Superman. Then you're boned.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin retreated to her dorm, climbed into bed, and hugged Mister Squishybones. She came close to death today, and from now on she would need to be extra careful not to upset anyone. The wrong question might reveal Old Scratch, or her new dolly, and then guards would kill her. More than just her, since Cali was involved as well.

If she got in trouble again, for anything, Lady Juna might not save her.

After a therapeutic cuddle-session with her new toy, she felt better. It was too late to do much tonight, thanks to helping Cali, meeting Scratch, and learning a hard lesson about how people don't like seeing lots of blood. Her nerves, however, would not allow her to sleep so she went to her desk and began to write.

The desk lamp was a minor magic device that sapped small amounts of the user's magic in order to power itself. According to the instructors, it was meant to train them by maintaining a small, steady, and constant stream of energy. Elruin didn't feel it was difficult at all, and she learned more about balance from carrying buckets of water at the farm.

She took out her basic calligraphy book and set to work writing letters to apologize to people. Using the ink instead of pencils, since she wanted it to look professional, she went through the process of writing an apology letter to the guards, and a thank-you letter to Lady Juna. A yawn signaled that she'd have to finish Cali's letter later, and then go through the process of figuring out which guard she was supposed to deliver the apology to.

In the morning, she went straight to find Lemia, to share the treasures of yesterday with the one person in the school willing to spend more time around her than required of them. She was in her usual corner of the alchemy section, toying with the ambient energies of the other students and their experiments, stitching together new magic from the tattered remnants of others.

"Ell!" She said in a voice half between a whisper and a shout. "Are you okay? I heard you were arrested!"

"I was." Elruin didn't notice that some of the other students were listening in. "It was a misunderstanding. But that doesn't matter, I have to show you something neat in my room." She couldn't think of anywhere else in the school to display her new spell.

Lemia looked around, but decided there wasn't much point in avoiding going with Elruin. If she had a reputation to worry about, it was tarnished enough by her own peculiarities that it was more useful to side with the child necromancer everything knew would have dragonslayer potential one day. Besides, she wanted to hear the rest of this story about her arrest. "Give me a moment."

Soon, the two of them were back in Elruin's room, where Lemia felt comfortable with asking questions. "What was the misunderstanding that got you arrested?"

Elruin decided there was no secret. "I took a magic robe, but it was evidence in a crime. I didn't know."

Not knowing wouldn't have saved most people from criminal punishment, this Lemia knew. If Elruin hadn't been connected with some of the nobility, she would have faced an ugly reality. "Where did you get it from?"

"I'm not allowed to say."

"Very well," Lemia dropped the conversation, since pressing the girl could cost months of slowly built trust. "So what did you want to show me?"

Elruin held out her new sarite shards. Five crystals, each no larger than a human finger bone. "I don't know what they do yet. Can you help?"

Five of them at one time screamed to Lemia that they must have come from the same place as the robe. "Where did you find these?"

"I'm not allowed to say."

Thought as much. Lemia held the crystals. She sorted them from worst to best, then held up the remarkably bad one. "I think someone drained it, almost destroyed it. No need to breathe, short range flight. Now all it can do is help you hold your breath. Best used with a mortar and pestle."

Elruin did not like the idea of destroying a treasure, even one that was more valuable as raw materials for a potion. "Can you fix it?"

Lemia chuckled. "If I had that sort of power, I wouldn't be here. I'd be the Queen's Alchemist. Or maybe I'd be the queen."

"Oh." Elruin didn't hide her disappointment well. "I understand."

Lemia went to the mind shard next. "Oh, I don't suppose I can have this one? You can't use it anyway."

"What's it do?" Elruin asked. She knew neither she nor Cali could use mind magic. One because it was creation, the other because it was air, but she was still curious its properties.

"Minor boosts to alertness and memory," she said. "The real power is that it grants mental recovery, about half as fast as you get from sleep. Not bad for a combat mage, amazing for a college student who fears she's going to die of exhaustion during her applied alchemy exam."

Elruin wanted to help Lemia with her studies, but also didn't want to give up her treasures. She also didn't want to upset Lemia, her only friend other than Cali. "You can borrow it, if you like."

Lemia set the crystal aside. "Ell, did you get these from outside the wall?"

"I'm not allowed to say."

Which Lemia took to mean yes. "Can you say if you'll be able to go out to find more?"

"I don't think they'll let me go outside, anymore," Elruin said. She wasn't fond of the idea of going out in the first place, with all the monsters and Ghosts of Sorvel in the forest doing bad things like killing Cali's friends. She also wanted to go out, to make the bad people stop being bad. They'd be so much nicer as dollies.

"Oh, getting outside is easy," Lemia said.

"Really?" Elruin asked. "What about the wall?"

"Built to keep people out, same with the sarite shielding." Lemia had put some thought into the subject. "They can't make the barrier too hard, or it'll block out air and burn up its energy in minutes, so weak magic can sneak through where raw power would fail. There are even spots you can go to have luncheons while looking out at the landscape. It's easy to sneak out."

"How do you get back inside?"

"I haven't puzzled that part out. Any suggestions? You know the gate and guards better than I do."

"I don't know, Lady Calenda was always with me. They treat her special, because she's a scout."

"Well, if you think of a way, please tell me," Lemia said. "I want to see what it's like out there, with all the creatures and adventure. But only if I can come back inside, with my warm bed and fresh food. Sleeping on the ground sounds awful."

"I can... show you?" Elruin offered.

"How?" Lemia leaned forward.

"I found a spell that lets people synchronize," she said. "It's really neat, and lets you show memories."

"And you can do this? With anyone? No special requirements or side effects?"

"I think only Revealed mages can do it, and they have to both use their Revelation together. Other than that, the magic relies on fundamental principles to do most of the work. We can do it right now, if you want." Elruin caught on to Lemia's hesitation after a moment. "You don't want to?"

"It's just, I never thought I could synchronize with anyone due to my nature." Lemia looked away, a light pink creeping to her cheeks. "And everything I've read on the subject makes it sound... intimate..."

"Is this one of those city people things, like sharing a bed?" Elruin still didn't understand why Lemia thought it was weird that she shared a bed with some of her sisters. They seemed to believe only small children and married people slept together. Which wasn't half as bad as when she said she bathed with them, too.

"I guess it is," Lemia admitted. "It's just weird, that's all. But, well, I'd hate myself if I turned down a chance to learn magic I've never heard of before. How did you learn about it? Let me guess, you're not allowed to say."

Elruin considered lying, but the spell she was about to cast didn't do well with lies. "No, I can't."

"I'll start, and when you're ready you can alter the music, change it to your liking."

Suggested Listening

Elruin began her song, a soft and gentle affair, similar but different than with Scratch. She sang of things that better fit what she knew of Lemia, focusing on experiences and her time outside the walls, the sinister affair of nightfall, of cold ground, and of the mockery of the morks.

Lemia caught on quick, and began to adjust notes with gestures, grabbing them from the air and moving them to a new place as if designing sheet music. Her mathematical Revelation was an unusual one, but it was simple to pair math with music. She drew calculations of frustration, confusion, as siblings surpassed her due to her lack of potential.

Elruin joined in singing about the betrayal her family inflicted on her, though she took care to hide the nature of why they exiled her to die.

Lemia wrote of anger, of a desire for revenge which she had never acted upon but sat deep within her.

Elruin touched on the cruelty of the Ghosts of Sorvel, acknowledged her own desire to seek revenge, but she focused on the morks who offered her the opportunity for revenge, which she rejected. She sang of saving them from Cali, who wanted them arrested and sold into slavery.

Lemia backed away from the anger, crafted a formula of success by being stronger, smarter, and better than those who've wronged them.

The crafted song tapered off, and now it was Lemia who had tears in her eyes. "I don't want to sneak into the wilderness anymore."

Elruin went to the bed and picked up Mister Squishybones, which she handed to Lemia. "Here you go."

Lemia smiled, laughed, then hugged the stuffed animal.


=====

A/N- Mister Squishybones plushies. I wants one. If I can get enough readers to make it cost effective, I'll try to make them happen. I'm thinking the "black body, white socks" look, but instead of the white forehead diamond some horses have, it'll be a cute little stylized skull.

The lamps are a way to save money by using the students as a power source. I may or may not be joking, but let's be honest, you know if it was possible to get away with, schools would do it in real life.

Yes, this setting does have pencil. The graphite is magically-altered charcoal, but it's a whole lot cheaper to get large amounts of charcoal than it is to produce quality ink.

Gifting desirable sarite makes for some major friendship points in the game.

And the "damaged sarite" thing might be a game mechanic, to reward quick kills.

 

Suggested Listening

Lemia spent just long enough holding Mister Squishybones to start to feel uncomfortable with her younger friend standing there. She handed the surprisingly well-made stuffed toy back to Ell, then asked the first question that came to mind. "What happens, now?"

"I don't know," Elruin said. "Other than boosting magic, what does it do?"

"A lot of things," Lemia said. "But the literature is vague on the specifics. It seems to take everything into account, from the aspects to Revelation, to the strength of the participants and their shared resonance. The obvious part is that I should be more resistant to your magic, which is good since you sort of, well, there's a reason that people avoid you."

"But I thought this shard was supposed to hide that." Elruin held up the shadow sarite that had been her near-constant companion.

"Can I see that?" Lemia took the crystal from Elruin. "Entek!" She handed it back. "I knew you were strong, but I thought you were at our teachers' level. You make most of the nobility look weak."

"But Lady Juna and Lord Garit are stronger."

Lemia held her breath for a moment, at mention of the future Duke and High General. "I guess it's no surprise they'd be interested in you. I bet they saw right through that crystal." She knelt down in front of her young, terrifying, friend. "They're scions of some of the strongest blood in the empire, and they've been training their skills since before you were born, probably before I was born."

"Oh," Elruin stopped to consider the gap between them and almost everyone she'd seen thus far. "And they have a perfect resonance with one another, I bet that makes them stronger."

Lemia felt uncomfortable, considering some of the rumors about the twins. "I guess when you train together for two decades, you learn to work well together."

"Will we be able to do that, some day?"

Lemia doubted it, given that her field didn't see much opportunity for combat practice, and Elruin didn't seem suited for alchemy. Although now she saw the logic behind the girl learning here; she had power to spare, what she lacked was knowledge. "Maybe some day, but for now I think all we do make it easier for the other to use magic."

"I don't feel any difference." Elruin hadn't noticed at all. She hadn't noticed much from Scratch, either.

"I can. It almost doubles the power I can call on." Lemia wasn't fond of being reminded of the humbling gap between them. "I think you can, too, but it's minor compared to your natural strength. I'm no more than a leaf in your tree."

That made sense, now that Lemia said it. "Thank you for helping. Do you think this will help you use magic better?" Elruin handed off one of her old sarite, the one that bolstered air magic.

Lemia held it for a moment. "Hmm, ah, I think I know what you're trying, but it won't work. This shard boosts the strength of the magic itself, which won't help me much. Maybe I could get some use from seeing in the dark, but I'm not strong enough to use it and this recovery shard. Thank you for the offer, though."

"As I walk." Elruin looked over at her table. "Can we play later? I need to do my chores."

"Come by the lab whenever you want to see me, because I'm going to live there until the quarter has finished." As great a relief as the extra hours she could devote to her work, was not having to put up with her roommate's constant attempts to find some alone time with her boyfriend of the week. Being stuck in a room with some lesser noble's spoiled daughter was annoying enough without the strangers who ranged from rude to creepy.

Perhaps she'd ask about rooming with Elruin. She was confident nobody would object. The administrators never liked having a student alone to a room, and now that they had some shared resonance, the constant unnerving aura wasn't so bad. She felt confident the girl wouldn't turn their room into a makeshift brothel, which was more than she could say for most of the students here.

Something for her to worry about later, now that she was going to be so much more productive. She felt a moment of guilt, cheating this way, only to remind herself that everyone in the school cheated. It was the nature of the beast that everyone cheated, except those lacking the wherewithal to acquire some magic which helped them cheat.

Meanwhile, Elruin remained ignorant of her friend's thoughts as she returned to writing her apology letters. She read them twice over, then decided they were all complete so she went to deliver them.

First, the police station was closest, so she went there. The new sarite was fun, letting her move with amazing bursts of speed. She almost giggled when she ran across the park as a blur of black hair and light clothes. This new shard may not have the ability to zap people with lightning or guide her aim, but the speed was amazing. She walked faster with the shard than she could run without it.

She slowed when she got close to the station, since they seemed like the sort who'd be upset by using magic around them. She approached one of the lady guards. "Hello? Can you help me?"

"Are you lost?" In this part of the city, with a child who didn't appear to be abused or hungry, it was the best guess.

"No, I wanted to give a letter to the sergeant," Elruin said. She held the letter out for the woman. "I'm Lady Elruin. I caused trouble yesterday, and wanted to apologize to everyone."

The woman nodded; she'd heard about that situation, and all the speculation the secrets surrounding it. How could she not, when General Juna herself was involved? "You are a very polite young lady," she said while accepting the letter. "I promise I'll deliver this straight to the sergeant."

"Thank you, ma'am," Elruin clasped her hands and bowed, before heading off to her next stop. The mansion Lady Juna and Lord Garit lived in wasn't close, but it was along the path that would take her to Cali's home. Juna wasn't home, so she was forced to leave that letter for later delivery as well. She hoped it wouldn't annoy them that she couldn't deliver it in person.

Last, not least, she stopped by Cali's home. Lyra wasn't around, which meant Rena must be gone as well, so Elruin let herself in. She found the older girl laying in her living plant bed. "Are you better?"

Cali gave a weak smile. "More dead than alive, I think." Elruin felt weird about Cali not running her mouth. "But I'll get better soon. It's Crela I'm worried about, they're reviving her now, but the process is... it might be better to stay dead. Then I tell her that Lanine was beyond saving before someone else does."

Elruin nodded; she hadn't considered they might try to resurrect the dead scouts. "What can I do to help?"

Cali remained still, but her smile faded. "I don't think they want your sort of help, Ell."

"I meant how can I help you?" She looked around. "Do you need me to do chores? A hug? Anything?"

Cali opened her mouth, then closed it. "I was about to say you wouldn't understand, but that's not fair. You've lost loved ones, too."

Elruin sat down next to Cali's bed, unsure of what to say.

"So have I." Cali stared up at the ceiling. "I never gets easier, but I've learned to compartmentalize. This is different, this is losing a member of my team." She choked the last word out. "It should have been me. I was the front-liner, the one who went face to face with the enemy. They stayed back, relied on me to take the blows so they wouldn't have to, and I failed."

She huffed, would have punched the wall if she could get her arms to move for more than useless flailing. All she could do now, physically or mentally, seemed to be useless flailing. "I couldn't save them. I couldn't even save myself. You're the reason I'm alive."

"But Scratch-"

"Wanted you!" Cali failed to sit up. "He saved me, to meet you. Now you're helping that thing, and it's my fault. I should have told him to crawl back into the pit, accepted my fate. It would have been better for everyone."

Elruin leaned forward, to lay her head next to Cali and put her arm around the older girl. "Then I never would have gotten Mister Squishybones."

Cali remained still a full minute, then nudged her arm around Elruin. "Is that what you're calling it?"

"Uh-huh. He gives the best hugs. I'll bring him next time, then you'll feel better."

Cali smiled despite herself. "Promise he won't start moving around on his own."

Elruin thought about what it would take to animate a stuffed animal, but she'd destroy it if she tried. "I promise."


=====

Remember kids: winners don't do drugs. Unless they're steroids. In which case, use lots of drugs!

Teachers frown upon the use of sarite for educational advantage... or they're supposed to, at any rate. As long as a student doesn't make it too obvious, they're not going to look too hard. Higher education is a competitive field in Engewal, and there is no such thing as tenure. Perform or be replaced is the name of the game.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin devoted much of the rest of her week's free time to studying the nature of resonance, though she didn't take long to come to the conclusion that nobody understood more than the basics of this field. Which might explain why Scratch was the only one who knew an artificial method, when it was such a simple ability. Or perhaps it was because his version was much weaker than natural synchronization.

In the end, both literature and her own experience agreed that the best way to improve resonance with a location was to spend a great deal of time tending to that area with one's magic. Alone, if possible, otherwise the jumbled mess of other human essences would cleanse away the effort in hours, or minutes in a city this size. And the best way to improve synchronization was to practice magic with the person you wanted to share resonance with, and more difficult or stressful situations sped the process. Perhaps that was why half the books equated strong resonance with romantic entanglement.

She had no interest in that outcome, but she wanted as many safe, happy friends as possible, so she found Lemia in the lab with a plan in mind. "Can we practice potion-making?"

Lemia looked up from her notes. "Ell? Is it morning, already?"

"Almost noon," she said. "I thought we could practice together with potions."

Lemia stretched. "Ooh." Elruin's eyesight identified the problem right away: the shard may counter the mind's need for sleep, but it did nothing to help physical recovery. "A potion sound like a wonderful idea."

Lemia went through the usual process of drawing energy from the environment to fill her cup with enhanced water. As she drank the concoction, Elruin studied the magic rushing through her body and mending all the damage that her days of tireless work had done to the flesh and bone. "Seven above! I think that's the best healing potion I've ever made!"

Elruin kept watching the whole thing. "You're getting stronger."

"More like you're making me stronger," Lemia countered. "Don't worry, I'm fine with it. I'm so proud that I can't accept charity."

Charity. "That's a great idea." Resonance magic worked better in real situations than it did just practicing rituals in the school, else everyone here would have synergized with everyone else in the building. "We should go heal people, for charity."

Lemia smirked at the girl. "They wouldn't let you within shouting distance of the Respite houses. But, if you don't mind getting a little unorthodox, I can get us somewhere the healers don't often tread."

"I'll go get my stuff." Elruin went to find her training outfit, since it and her school uniforms were her only clothes that could withstand her magic for long, then met up with Lemia at the entrance to the school.

Lemia handed her a cheap flax cloak. "Here, when we get out of the noble district, wear this and keep your head down."

They traveled for some time, as the buildings grew more numerous and less grand, until they reached a point where instead of buildings at all, there were shacks made from scraps stolen from older projects. Elruin looked around as best she could, while obeying Lemia's instructions to continue looking down. She didn't want to get in trouble, but trouble had its way of finding her.

"What do we have here?" A man, older than her, and quite rude to approach. "The uppity whore returns."

"We're just passing through." Lemia mumbled. "C'mon, Ruk, old time's sake?"

"Without saying hello to your old friends," he said. "Guess you're worn out anyway. Decided you'd rather sell someone else? Little young for my tastes, but-"

"Don't touch her!" Lemia moved, a little too late, as someone grabbed Elruin's arms from behind.

Reflex, and remembrance of the other bad men who tried to hurt her, caused Elruin to act. What sounded for a moment like a scream of fear evolved into a song of cold, cruel certainty. Black lightning burned away her cheap cloak, then much of the bad man's fingers. His voice joined her song, screams of fear and pain as he flopped on the ground.

"Merat!" The man who'd troubled Lemia took two steps back. "Enge Protect!"

"I told you." Lemia sighed, then pulled her cloak down. "I wanted to get through without causing any trouble, Rukan. In, out, nothing more. But now you went and laid hands on Lady Elruin. We all know what happens to men who touch a noble's child."

The one who Elruin zapped managed to bring himself to his feet, despite both his arms having been numbed to paralysis. He'd recover, but without a good healer he'd lose a few fingers.

"You brought a noble's brat here?" Rukan hissed. "Are you insane?"

Lemia looked him in the eyes. "Lady Elruin can defend herself, in case you hadn't noticed. Now be a good little lapdog, run back to Lerulan, and tell him I am heading to the shelter. Any trouble, any at all, and there are only two outcomes. Either she does that-" Lemia pointed at the man stumbling away. "-to all of his men. Or you hurt her, and her family comes looking. No matter how it goes down, he loses."

"Entek." Rukan backed away. "You better never come back here alone, whore!" He ran into the direction of one of the larger cluster of shacks, ducked through a tight passageway, then zigzagged along in a way that reminded Elruin of the rodents she once hunted.

"Sorry I ruined your gift. Am I in trouble?" Elruin kept her eyes down.

"Gift? That old burlap trash?" Lemia smiled. "You've done nothing wrong. It was my fault for thinking we could get through without being noticed. I'm not welcome in this neighborhood, if it wasn't obvious."

"Why?" Elruin could sympathize, given what happened with her siblings. "Why do they call you bad things?"

"Not everyone is lucky enough to have rich parents, or incredible power." Lemia gathered herself, stood tall instead of hiding away like she was before. "I was born here, to a mother who died from drugs a few years ago, and a father that I probably passed a thousand times on the street without recognizing. All I had was a strange quirk, and ambition. But without an education, it was useless, and without money I couldn't get that education. Ruk was a former... friend... who I allowed to believe was something more. You were never in any real danger, they just wanted to scare us away."

"They weren't bad men?" Elruin looked back, still able to spot the damaged flickering lifeforce of the man who grabbed her.

"No, they're terrible men," Lemia said. "They're men who'd poison innocent children for a sliver of copper. They hate me because I was one of the ones who got away. I made something better of myself, and that makes them afraid and angry."

"I don't understand."

"They're afraid, because they don't want others to see me. They think that if I come back successful, then others will realize they, too, can be successful. Then all of their power and control evaporates. They're angry because I'm a reminder of their own inadequacy. If I, a former prostitute, can make it and they can't, what does that say about them?"

"Like Kasa," Elruin said. Then realized she never told Lemia about her. "She's my sister, she hates when anyone is smarter or better than her. She tried to feed me to morks."

"Three above, four below," Lemia muttered. "I always thought it was the cities that made people act like this, but even Lerulan wouldn't murder children. Sell them poison, yes, but not butcher them. You're far more merciful than I'd have been in that situation."

Suggested Listening

"Lady Cali didn't understand, either," Elruin said. "She said I was a sai- what's that?" Elruin looked forward to the marble pillar which stood out on a literal and metaphorical level, but radiated magic like she'd never seen before. It was some blend of all creation-aspect magics, but also a great deal of fundamental patterns as well. Around the pillar sat many temporary shelters, as they did everywhere else.

"This is the shelter. All the happiest memories of my childhood happened here," she said. "I've dug through every historical record I could find, but none of them mention who made it or when. I'm convinced it's older than the empire itself."

As they walked deeper into the field of magic, Elruin observed the dense, intricate patterns. Around them, children poked their heads out of their shelters to observe. None showed any sign of fear. "It reminds me of Lyra. Not the same aspects or abilities, but her level of skill and power. I think I could spend years studying it and not understand everything."

"So, there still exists magic beyond you," Lemia said with a smile. "I have studied it for years, and all I have are guesses. I think at one time it was a prison, meant to show criminals the path of peaceful reform. For us, it's a shelter from criminals. In here, no one can attempt an act of violence. Even thinking about inflicting harm is impossible. Sadists who hurt others for fun fall to their knees and weep. Doesn't play nice with intoxication or sex, either."

Out of curiosity, Elruin attempted to consider using her magic, targeting a bad person to harm. The closest she could get was knowing that her magic could be used to kill, but having trouble imagining how it could do so. It was a disorienting experience, so she gave up in seconds. "I think it would be a good prison."

"I think so, too," she said. "But who knows how ancient civilizations thought? Maybe this was a public bathhouse?" Now they were near the center of the pillar, where Lemia knelt in front of an older woman.

"Little Mia, what brings you back here?" The woman might have guessed Elruin needed shelter, but the girl was in quality clothing, and had the look of someone who had nothing to fear of the world.

"Grandmother." The woman wasn't her real grandmother, but here she was everyone's grandmother. "I'm here to provide healing, for a time." Lemia set a her cup and tools in font of her, at the woman's feet.

"She's with the church?"

"No, ma'am," Elruin said with perfect politeness. "But my Elder Sister is Priestess Calenda."

"We're here to do alchemical healing," Lemia added. "We're somewhat limited in what we can do, but when I lived here we needed all the help we could get. Even minor healing will make the task of caregivers much easier. All we need is a place to set up, and water to enchant."

"We had an outbreak of Seizing Sickness. Can you help?"

Lemia didn't know how their magic would work on the disease. "Can't promise more than the symptoms, but we'll try."

"Then lives may yet be saved. Lemia, you know where the sick houses are. Children, spread the word that a minor healer is here, we'll focus on treating the young. Don't get anyone's hopes too high."

Elruin followed Lemia along until they reached the small shacks that were smaller than many of the sheds they had back on the farm. The essence of death was here, but the pillar's magic somehow prevented the lingering death from blossoming into taint, no matter how rich the metaphorical soil was for it. Even the ground was dry, ashen, and struggling to support life.

"What is this place?"

"Sick houses," Lemia said. "When we fear an illness is too dangerous, we erect a little shelter. We pray, the illness runs its course, then we burn the shelter. There is only a question of if it's a celebration pyre or a funeral pyre. All diseases I've ever read about will die in the fire."

"I see." Perhaps this was where Kasa got the idea that burning the undead would work. Now that she got a look at this place, she was more certain than ever that taint could not be cleansed by physical means. She contemplated explaining the not-taint building here, since these were Lemia's friends. "You should move the sickhouses, never keep them in the same spot more than a few weeks. It creates dangerous death magic."

A makeshift table was carried in by four adult women, set down so Lemia could begin charging temporary potions using buckets of rainwater. Lemia started working on the first wave of potions as she talked to Elruin. "You're certain? I don't feel anything."

"I'll show you." Elruin began to sing, drawing upon the vast well of necromantic energy in the region. Water bubbled over the edges of the buckets, unable to contain even a brief exposure to the available energy.

Lemia looked wide-eyed at the area. "How... how has no exorcist seen this before?"

"I don't know, perhaps they don't know how to look under the shelter magic?" It was sitting like a plug atop the death energy. "You didn't notice it, and you were here with it for years. It's not dangerous, and I can control it."

"Then looks like we've got plenty of power to work with." Lemia grinned, as she started to twist the available energies, with Elruin's help in refining and controlling that power for safe consumption. In pure state, the water in those buckets could kill a man in seconds, and have the body walking again in under a minute.

Soon, a young boy was brought to them, sickly, sweating, and having trouble moving while minor tremors wracked his weakened muscles. Elruin could see the poison inside him, disrupting what Elruin might some day learn was called the nervous system.

The man who brought the boy held a mouthful of the magic-charged water for the boy. It was enough to cleanse the poison, though it did not dislodge the cause. The woman next to him spoke for them. "Is he better, now?"

"No, the cause is still there," Elruin said. The disease itself, however, did not seem all that resilient. More than that, it was different than the human essence, and its ability to resisting the life energy of the healing potion made it all the more visible to her lifesight. Combined with her new experience with resonances, she was confident she could target the disease, while only causing minor damage to the boy.

"I think I can cure him," she said. Unless the illness had a special surprise, it was weaker than any rat she'd ever killed. "It will hurt."

The woman looked at her husband, then back to Elruin. "It can't be worse than the pain of the disease."

A soft, targeted burst of death energy caused the child to gasp in pain, forced his father to hold him down as he struggled against the soft waves of death energy that burned his body, but scoured the illness. In time, he stopped, gasping for breath.

"He'll need another dose of the healing potion," Elruin said. Here, she was the expert, and she had a well of power the likes of which she had never imagined before. Soon the boy, carried by his father, was moved in favor of the next victim of this terrible disease.



=====

... I think I might just go with Arctic Selkies as Elruin's Theme for this part of the story. Weirdly beautiful and off-putting and mysterious. What do you think?

Compatibility bonuses are designed to grant a mathematical 10% boost at lvl 1 (5% for these lvl 0 setups), but the bonus will be distributed to favor the weaker individual over the stronger. At this point, in D&D terms, Elruin is somewhere in the 6 or 7 range, while Lemia's a lvl 1 NPC class... so our favorite necrololi gets no benefits of this bond. Other than the happiness of having new friends.

(Order of) Respite houses shouldn't be hard to figure out, but they're charity hospitals. Where those who can't afford real care go if the church is overworked (which is almost always). Healers are common enough (~3.5% of the population have some healing magic). Good healers, less so.

Engewal's slums are much larger and there's an entire set of plotlines for just the slums of that city. Including the "Slum Goddess" ending. But that's a city with almost fifty times the population of Arila. And one the players of this path have shown zero interest in. Yay, open-world games.

Spoiler: it actually was just a bath house, from a time that wasn't more innocent, but was still very different.

Seizing Sickness is their world's name for Tetanus. Even with our modern medicine it's a 10-20% lethality, and caused by a very common bacteria pretty much everywhere that's not the arctic, infects easily in places lacking basic hygiene. Seriously, get your fucking tetanus shots, they can save your life.

I hadn't expected THIS story path to take us here... it was meant for the "Order of Respite" path missions... but player tosses curveball, and I respond accordingly.

 

Suggested Listening

It was nightfall before the pair finished. Lemia had to take another dose of potion for herself, just to help get home, and even Elruin found herself more exhausted than she'd been at any point since arriving in Arila.

Lemia laughed as they walked through her former neighborhood. "I can't believe it!" Before she'd walked proud out of defiance, now she felt real pride. "No healer has ever been able to do more than twenty or thirty disease cases without burning themselves out. We did over a hundred, and dozens of broken bones, it's incredible!"

"We can do it again," Elruin said. It had been a long process, the worst being those suffering from partial starvation. Healing magic was good for many, many things, but it had limits. Everyone knew it was impossible to cure aging, the best that could be hoped for is to alleviate suffering, but starvation and dehydration were also difficult. The seemingly endless pool of death energy helped a great deal.

There were other ways to deal with hunger. "Maybe we can teach them to make farms?" Elruin didn't think they could get chickens and cows here, but there was nothing stopping them from buying viable beans, and wheat was just grass, it could grow anywhere.

"I know where you're going with this, it's been tried before, it never works." Lemia kept glancing to the sides. The people stared at them, now, not in suspicion but in wonder. Elruin would get all the credit, even though Lemia's ability did the hard part. She didn't care, their approval wasn't important to her. Or so she told herself.

"I want to help them."

"They have to help themselves," Lemia countered. "Let's say your plan works, we get a farm going. Let's say nobody attacks the farm, its volunteer, or their families." With Elruin's reputation and power, it was possible they wouldn't dare. "Where do we put the farm? Is there enough space to feed everyone? What of their houses that have to move to make room for cropland?"

Elruin had no answer to those questions.

"Best scenario, we create a new middle-class, employed laborers, who take land and drive off those who were unable or unwilling to work. They form a new camp somewhere else, or get driven into the wilderness to die. Worst scenario, some noble's brat claims the land and the farm. Your connections would probably shield from that, so you become the Lady in charge of the region, and then one day you die, your kids fight over the land, and it becomes politics as usual. Even your power can't stop that."

"We can teach them to work," Elruin suggested. "Maybe hire some teachers."

"Some, maybe, but what work do you give to people with no magical potential?" Lemia asked. "Without magical bloodlines, they're not even worth making slaves from. And before you ask, yes, certain nobles have tried the obvious solution. It appealed to nobody except a certain type of nobleman. You won't find those books in the city libraries, I promise that."

Elruin wasn't quite certain what the 'obvious' solution was, but if others did, then what hope did she have of fixing the world when they couldn't? Maybe she could use her dollies to run farms to feed people, but everyone seemed to think that was a terrible idea. The more she studied the subject, the more she agreed that controlling taint was harder than it looked. She'd need to talk to Scratch about how he accomplished it, some day.

A day that would have to wait, as she returned to school and had to wait several days for any free time to be available, which she chose to spend with Cali.

Suggested Listening

Lyra was on the roof again, when Elruin arrived that afternoon. The dryad hopped down from her perch, then sniffed Elruin. She looked at the squishy horse toy, then gave it a gentle pet while ignoring Elruin.

"His name is Mister Squishybones."

Leya looked at her for a moment, then back to the horse, then jumped back onto the roof. A step in the right direction, considering what she could do if Elruin annoyed her. With the dryad neutral to her presence, Elruin entered the house to find that Cali was up and walking.

"I heard you had a busy week," Cali said. "When did you pick up a healing spell?"

"It was Lemia who did most of the work. She's one of my classmates, who wants to be an alchemist. All I did was provide power." Elruin looked down. "Did I do something wrong, again?"

"Wrong? No, not at all." Cali stopped to lean against a wall and breathe. "Some of the movers and shakers of the city are nervous about you, but they get nervous any time a mud-hero shows up."

"What's a mud hero?" This was the first time she'd heard the term.

"Anyone with high magical potential who doesn't come from one of the ruling families," Cali said. "Especially the ones who go around helping people without official sanction. They hate it when anyone looks better than them. Right about now is when they'd be making their power plays to win your favor and increase their own influence, or attempting to discredit you, or some combination of both."

"Nobody's been bothering me," Elruin said.

"Because you were snapped up early," she said. "Any move on you now could be seen as an attack on me, my family, and the College. And your stunt last week made all of us look good, so they'll be keeping an eye out for you. Plus, Lady Juna's staked her interest in you. You're not untouchable, but if you remain a stable quantity, the worst you have to worry about are nobles watching you for a means to ingratiate themselves with our future leaders. And all the betrothal offers."

Which would explain why Lady Juna showed up so soon after she got arrested. "Betrothal offers? You mean marriage? What do I do?"

"Sort of." Cali moved over to one of the large, soft, mostly-moss chairs for a seat. "You do nothing, right now. Since you're so young, the protocol is that families of boys around your age shall approach me to arrange play-dates for you. They figure even if possible marriage never occurs, at least it means networking and contacts for their brat once you're older and taking apprenticeships and leadership roles."

"Then I get married?"

"If you want, but I'm not forcing the issue," Cali said. "My parents and siblings want me to, but I told them to go visit the farmsteads and find their own wild talents to auction off if it's that important. And I told the suitors that for now I want you pursuing your education, then we'll worry about suitors. Smarter that way, if you can keep your value going up over time. How would you like to marry a prince? Do they still tell those fairy tales about poor girls marrying princes these days?"

"Sometimes," Elruin said. "My sisters all wanted to marry princes. I never thought about it."

"Well, if you keep up like you have been, you might have to think about it. Or maybe one of the Heir Potentials, or one of their children at any rate. It will be years before we have to worry about any of that, but what do you think?"

Elruin considered it for a moment. "I came over to see how you were doing? Are you feeling better?"

"I know, and I don't know." Cali admitted. "They've finished bringing Crela back, I'll be there tonight when she's ready to wake up, and I've been doing everything I can think of to not think about it. How do I tell her? What do I tell her? No, I don't expect you to have any answers, I just wish I had some."

"Here," Elruin set Mister Squishybones in Cali's lap. "Take him with you, he can give Crela a hug."

Cali snorted. "Wouldn't that be a sight to behold." She put an arm around the toy nonetheless. "Thanks, I'm sure Crela will get a laugh out of it, if nothing else."

Elruin had to leave not long after, to let Cali go to her friend. Elruin returned to campus to do more study and work. She would have to wait another week to get Mister Squishybones back, but she knew Cali needed him more than she did right now. So after getting her prized toy back, and making sure Cali was feeling better, Elruin took the time to go out by herself.

She was known, now, with people looking at her wherever she went. Healers were common, healers that could handle as many people as she had that week were not, and ones as young as her were unheard of. She had no understanding of what a celebrity was, but for now she was a celebrity in town, if a minor one. For now, however, she wanted to walk the wall looking for a vulnerability, some means to sneak back inside if she had Lemia help her sneak out.

Options were minimal, at best. Even in the poor side of town, the wall was designed to withstand assaults from mages, dragons, and armies alike. Even if she found a vulnerability in the wall, there was the half-mile of open prairie between the wall and the forests which she didn't know how she could sneak across. Perhaps at night, perhaps with her magic and sarite, she might get close. She had little hope...

Suggested Listening

She spotted the threat moments before the guards atop the tower. Streaks of white flame, pure creation magic slammed into the magical shields that protected the city from the skies. The energy was warped, forced into a new form by the power of a song not unlike Lyra and the shelter. The shield, the city, changed in response to the magic.

The sky turned orange, then a face formed in the sky. He was a grim man who looked much like Lord Garit, with the same eyes and green hair, though he had a beard. One of his eyes was missing, replaced by a burnt-orange orb which glowed with power, highlighting the fresh scar from the wound which took that eye. At first glance, it appeared to be a one-way projection and nothing more, though the power needed to do so at this scale defied her comprehension.

"I am King Claron ne Enge, leader of the Liberation Army. To the citizens, the captives, of Arila, I bid you lay down your arms and hide in your home. We are your protectors, and will not harm those of you who do not harm us."

People muttered in the street, uncertain of what to make of the situation but also unconcerned. To them, the wall was inviolable, and the madman with his declarations was little more than amusing street theater. Elruin knew better- whatever he was, he had access to a scale of magic which could destroy the wall, if he so desired. Worse, the warped bubble was blinding people to the outside world, and all the bodies approaching the city from outside. A thousand soldiers, maybe more, would be at the wall soon.

She began to run, with the full strength of her new speed-boosting air shard.

"To my kin, the so-called nobility, the jailers of Arila, I demand your unconditional surrender. Your ill-gotten gains shall be confiscated in the name of the people, and you will be allowed to live amongst those you look down upon. You don't want to resist. You know me, you know what I will do to you."

Elruin kept running, back to safety, back to friends. She didn't know from which direction the attack would come, but she knew there was no time to spare.

"To the priests of Arila, know that I am blessed by our Emperor God Enge, Himself." The projection enlarged on Claron's face, specifically the object in his eye socket. "This great artifact is a representation of Enge's own will and power. The unworthy would be struck down by touching it, yet I stand stronger than ever before. All who resist are traitors to the church and to the crown."

It had been a long time since Elruin ran so hard it hurt, but she hurt and yet she kept running. There wasn't time, there wasn't-

The earth rumbled, as Claron displayed a similar level of power as the projection. Small mountains rose up around the city, dozens of long ramps which allowed the enemy's army to march right to the shield, and step inside. Those guards on the walls found themselves outnumbered and overwhelmed by an army that appeared out of nowhere through the barrier.

Enemies started dropping into the city, using magic to launch themselves off of the walls and into combat range of the patrolling officers. Those who dropped their weapons, who showed no resistance, were spared by the Ghosts of Sorvel as they took position in the main streets of the city. It was clear that the ghosts would win with the advantage of surprise on their side, along with the power which Claron held and the larger, bulkier creatures which moved up the ramps he'd made. Soon, there would be monsters in the city.

The city, or some part of it, fought back, dying and killing in the streets against these outsiders who came to take their homes. Elruin estimated she was a match for any two, maybe three of these fighters at a time on either side.

She was out of time, and far from safety.


=====

Magical Eugenics... This story is a fantasy reskin of cyberpunk, isn't it?

This is me showing the readers some of the reasons of the rebellion, and a taste of the path Elruin might have walked if she signed up with the Ghosts of Sorvel, instead of the nobility. No heroes, no villains, just people willing to kill and die for incompatible ideals.

Side note- ius primae noctis - the supposed practice of lords to have sex with women on their wedding night- there is absolutely no evidence of such a practice ever having happened in reality. It appears to be a fiction popularized by 16th century "enlightenment" writers to attack the prior system(s).

Also, I'm getting the feeling that nobody cares about my music selections. :'( But I'm liking "The White Stag" for Calenda's theme. Still loving Claron's theme music.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin weaved her way forward, toward the main gates. Cali's house wasn't far from the barracks, the two places she was most likely to be. Nearby, one of the soldiers was dealing with two opponents. They didn't see Elruin approach from behind, nor did they expect the black bursts of energy that pierced their skulls from behind.

She had to admit their armor was impressive, though. If she hadn't had surprise on her side, they might have still been standing. Wherever they got this equipment from, it was superior to what the city guards wore. She resolved to ask Juna what the policy was on taking equipment off enemy soldiers, instead of bandits. Or not-quite-dead soldiers, as was the case with the two brain damaged men on the ground before her.

She didn't have time to take anything now, so she kept running toward where she hoped to find Cali.

As she ran, she took the opportunity to make pot-shots against any of these invaders that wasn't paying attention. Some fell, others remained standing, she didn't waste the time to see what happened to them next nor was she prepared when a fist came out of nowhere.

She didn't realize what had happened until she was laying in the dirt, with a dagger wedged into her stomach. Her first thought was how disappointed Cali would be that she ruined yet another outfit. She saw another dagger coming for her, so she brought her hands up, and was rewarded with a knife now sticking into her arm. Better there than the face it would have hit if her reflexes had been slower.

With little choice, she sang, and blanketed the area in darkness. In the inky blackness, she was safe, though she knew she was drawing attention.

Agony in her guts, she shifted just enough to avoid a third dagger. She'd seen a fighting style like this before, with Calenda, though this guy didn't seem to have any way to track her in the darkness she created.

He was, however, invisible to her lifesight.

In the darkness, she scooted back until she was hiding in the nook under a porch, where at least she was sheltered from flying knives. Hemmed in, she could do little more than wait until someone who could or didn't need to see through her darkness would come. Given what she'd done to several of their men, she doubted she wanted to know what they'd do to her for revenge.

A thump and the splintering of wood signaled a third knife had been launched. She didn't have time to waste.

She gripped the weakened air sarite in one hand, and the knife in her stomach. Clenching her eyes, she began to drink of what little remained of the shard's life-giving strength, then yanked the dagger out of her stomach as hard as she could. She cried out in pain and directed the healing magic as best she could to stop the bleeding.

Wounded, exhausted, but unlikely to die in the next few minutes, she watched two life signatures approach the shell of darkness she'd crafted. A burst of flame streamed through, dispelling much of the unnatural shadow before it struck the building she hid beneath. They were going to burn her out. She'd have to run, while wounded and being pursued, or she'd stay here and die in the fire.

She glanced around, and chose the most bizarre of third options. Singing the song of anger and rage that she developed using squirrels, on yet another squirrel. The animal was agitated and terrified by the conflict going on around them, so she played on those emotions by reducing the fear and increasing the hate in the rodents tiny mind.

"Merat!" It pounced out of its tree upon the woman soldier. Enraged by magic, the little rodent proved its nut-eating teeth were for more than just show by biting deep into her eye-socket.

When her partner turned to help, Elruin fired another death bolt at his back. Not enough to kill this one, but it slowed him down long enough for the squirrel to escape his grasp.

Another crack-pop of wood, another knife. This one, however, hummed with magic.

Elruin scrabbled away, right before the dagger exploded into thousands of tiny fragments of metal. They pelted her back, no single one deadly, but only because they hit her back instead of her eyes. Worse, the shattered wood that was formerly the stairs to the porch had been reduced to tattered remnants of that couldn't slow down further attacks and would burn fast once the flame reached it.

She changed tracks, just some, and sang to her other mind-altering magic, amplifying the power of the shell of darkness she created. It spread outward while she poured everything she had into it. Those with weak minds screamed, retreated. She scrambled from her smoldering hiding place with the hope that the knife-thrower was amongst them.

The squirrel, driven to preternatural hatred toward all things bipedal, ignored the effect and went for the other victim in easy reach. He, too, screamed when the animal reached his face. He grabbed the animal by the tail, tried to swing it away, only for it to bite his finger and use the momentum to wind up on his back. It ran back around, and up into the protective helmet. More screaming, as another eye was claimed by the demon-rodent.

She felt a flicker of energy, then sensed a figure appear. Alive, but exhausted to the point of near-death by abuse of magic. She wasn't in much better shape, metal needles wedged in her back, leaving her back wet with blood while the pain in her stomach was not going to go away soon. Perhaps she should have broken the weak shard down for a permanent healing potion, it would have made her life so much easier.

A surprising burst of speed and power came from the wounded man, who caught her, gripping both her arm and her throat. She tried to kick away, but even wounded, it was still the strength of an adult man against that of a child.

His song was full of destructive energy, necromantic energy at that. She felt it wrap around her, try to invade her body and rip away her living energy. It licked at her skin, but failed to find purchase save to attempt to steal power from her sarite.

He realized his mistake one second too late, as Elruin tapped into her magic and gave him everything he asked for and more. Life and death were entwined forces of reality, more alike than different. Nothing could live without death, nothing could die without life, and the use of a vampiric attack on someone who radiated death energy was suicide.

His mouth opened, a silent scream followed moments later by his lips cracking and falling apart like cheap concrete. Dessicated tissue crumpled away like old mud, leaving behind nothing but a skeleton crumbled into mess of dust, a number of thin knives, armor Elruin couldn't hope to wear, and one shimmering black crystal.

In spite of her injuries, Elruin grabbed the newborn sarite shard, the first she'd ever seen come from a human. It was a cold, gluttonous thing that would not stop trying to steal her life energies, but it might prove useful. She kept it in a pouch away from her other sarite, just in case.

As the darkness trailed after the wounded necromancer, a blood-soaked squirrel squinted in the restored light. It reached into the helmet of its own victim, and pulled out the remaining eye. It, too, had been hardened by the power of pain and necromancy, and it was delicious. It went to gather the remains of the other eye for later, as squirrels were known to do.

Suggested Listening

In another part of the city, the enemy converged on the green, preparing a united front against their defenders. Dozens of men and women, numerous mages, and two dozen of the gigantic coyote-like beasts known as morks.

"Men!" The leader of this group shouted to his side, while his female partner stood, arms crossed, the social nicety to their female soldiers that his orders were also her orders. "Form up and create a line around the temple. Do not attack unless attacked, as the Great King Claron has offered amnesty to the priesthood who does not resist." It was an egotistical fiction, the belief that this cluster of rabble stood a chance against an accomplished priesthood. Their goal, instead, was to prevent civilians from retreating to the sanctuary of the church, lure the defenders out, and give justification to future retaliation against the church.

An old woman walked tall and without fear toward them. "Excuse me, child, you're in my way." She addressed him in the crudest way possible that couldn't be called obscene.

It was a provocation, and one he had to answer or lose face before all his men.

The morks saw the trap for what it was, though they could not guess the particulars. "Dangerous." "No fear." "Smells of ambush." "Illusion?" "Impossible." Not known for bravery, they began to back away from the rest of the team.

"Cowards!" The commander faced the woman, sword drawn. "Leave now, hag, or taste steel."

"After twelve children, all of whom thought to make their poor beloved mother gratitude meals, I'm sure I've tasted far worse." She stepped closer. "You should take better care of your blade. When was the last time you oiled hunk of rust? And my dear Urst would have a word to say about your poor form." She knew nothing about sword quality or combat forms, she never had, but she did know how to insult a man to violence.

"Silence!" He brought his sword up in a wide arc, a showy attack rather than an efficient one, so all his men could see the blade when it stopped with a hollow thud against a childlike face.

Rena smiled at the poor, foolish man. "That was the worst mistake you could have made."

Lyra was not sapient, but she recognized when someone tried to harm her human. A casual swipe of her hand sent the sword, and limb which held it, sailing off toward the wall. The metal of his armor was gossamer to her talons.

He screamed, and one of the mages in the crowd made the mistake of launching a burst of lightning at the ancient dryad. Electricity still dancing through her eyes, Lyra hissed at the offending mage, and came to the conclusion that these annoying strangers were unwelcome in her lair. Her hiss expanded outward, became a call to all living things in the city. She was their queen, they were loyal servants.

She smelled the scent of the necromancer who was friends with her human on some unusual beasts, and determined they would be left unharmed by her commands. Otherwise, all strangers were to be driven from her territory.

Clouds of insects moved to intercept everyone that smelled of those in front of Lyra, biting and stinging as they could. Most would die in moments, scoured even by weak magic, but in many cases they were the distraction the defenders needed to retaliate. The wind turned arrows back upon those who fired them, pebbles moved beneath their feet, and the horses and war dogs turned upon their masters. Dozens fell, not knowing why nature itself had risen against them.

Those who stood before her suffered a much crueler fate, when her power rushed through the greenery beneath their feat. Each blade of grass now straighter, stronger, and sharper than any blade of steel. They fell screaming, their feet pierced whether they wore leather or steel shoes. Hands and legs shredded when they, too, met the deadly grass.

Wounded, maimed, and crippled they were reduced to laying in grass that showed no mercy by allowing them to survive. They would not die, but they would never be able to care for themselves again in their lives. The poison added by the dryad would render healing magic useless upon them forever.

Those that remained standing annoyed the sadistic bug-plant-monster. With a whisper to the wind, and a sweep of her hand, dozens of leaves shook loose from a nearby elm. Each shot forward with the speed and accuracy of an arrow, slicing their way through armor, flesh, and bone. Those who were standing joined their crippled comrades in the dirt.

Lyra stood amidst the pile of bleeding, dying bodies while watching the morks flee for the walls with tails literally between their legs. The beasts were just that, beasts, mere creatures of the wild who knew their place in the hierarchy of the natural world. She was the apex predator, they were intruders in her den, and what led them to this place was less important to them than their lives. She would allow them to live, so the stink of their fear would dissuade other beasts from intruding upon her domain.

Besides, a more powerful beast by far approached. Lyra kicked up a storm of flower pollen, leaves, and bugs to defend her in a cloud of choking death, then turned her head to face the coming threat.

Suggested Listening

Claron struck like a comet through the cloud, flaming armor burning away anything that came close to him. His sword struck out, blocked by Lyra's forearm, while the land beneath their feet cracked with the force of the impact. For those few close enough to view the clash, it must have looked absurd to witness a small child holding back the full power swing of an adult man in heavy armor.

To those who comprehended a fraction of Lyra's power, it was terrifying. The ground had shifted to support the dryad, because she could not stand against the blow without assistance.

She rushed forward, lashing out with claws while being fended off by Claron's shield. He was on the defensive, but he was a forge mage, a powerful defense was his comfort zone. The shared shockwave of their collision, and the earth magic both called upon to serve them sent ripples across the physical and magical battlefield.

Pops and snaps signified that the city would cave before either of them did, as a segment of the wall collapsed into a pile of rubble. The sarite shield flickered, weakened but still functional. Both Lyra and Claron decided they could not afford to continue using such attacks; there were beasts in the wilds which matched them in in power, which would come if they drew this out too long.

Claron swung, Lyra leapt out of the way, and the earth exploded beneath their feet. Claron stumbled back, blinded in the plume of dust and rock.

Lyra did not need her eyes to fight. She could hear him, she could feel him, and she could smell him. She rushed in, taking enough time to move into a flanking position. Claron howled in pain when her talon slid through his side, rupturing his kidney and leaving her venom inside.

Then her skin erupted into flame, the man's blood converted into magma powered by expended and lose life essence. The flame spread, grew, and Lyra made the decision that any wild animal in a trap would make: she severed the burning limb from her body.

The two spun to face one another again. Claron bleeding down his back, while Lyra had her arm amputated at the elbow. As initial exchanges went, Claron suffered the worse for it, but neither was in a strong position.

Claron glanced around at the gathering forces- allies and enemies alike. He liked to think of himself as a smart man, and one who knew when he was about to make a mistake. He felt he could win against this unholy beast, but doing so would leave him exhausted and vulnerable even to the mere mortals who waited for their chance to strike. Retreat, too, would ruin morale and leave that dryad to continue her rampage through his people. They were the deciding pieces of the battlefield, they would determine the war's outcome.

He drew upon the depths of his reserves, and the spell he hated more than any other. Sacrificial Flame. His blood erupted into energy, his wounds translated into enhanced magical strength, and the power ripped through his body. He would survive the spell, if exhausted. He was confident the dryad would as well, though he would be happy if proven wrong. The spectators would retreat to a further distance or die.

He expended his most powerful ability to claim just one life, but it was the one that mattered. Lyra now stood near the other side of the battlefield, her flesh charred by the power of Sacrificial Flame, but it was charcoaled remains of a skull in her hand which had been his goal.

Lyra held what little remained of her former human. To her, the battle was over, and she'd lost. Still missing a limb, she walked away from the battlefield to find her new human.

To the men and women who witnessed this event, the battle had only just begun. A stream of lightning in the shape of a woman bolted across the molted soil that had once been a park. Her blade struck Claron's, and he shook in place as all the energy rushed through him to discharge into the ground. "Ugh!" He gasped, but managed to parry the next blow with his shield. "A fine hello, Sister."

"Traitor!" Juna kicked out, slamming his shield, but it was her knocked back by the force of the blow.

"Traitor? I am the Chosen of Emperor Enge!" Still bleeding, Claron readied his defense. "To defy me is to defy your god!"

"Let's test that theory, shall we?" Lord Garit walked onto the crunching glass of the battlefield. "A gamble. The Lords of Arila against a wounded so-called chosen one. If we lose, we acknowledge Enge has chosen you. If we win, you die a dog's death."

Claron grinned at his sibling's offer. "I admit, I'd be disappointed if this went any other way."


=====

...I don't often do cliffhangers, but when I do...

Squirrels. Truly the most vicious animal in the woods if given the slightest provocation. Except badgers. Those bastards don't even need an excuse.

Knife Grenades. If they existed, every military on earth would use them. And they really do have grenade potential... Elruin's enhanced durability is the only reason she's alive right now.

Funny thing is, if the votes had gone to one of the combat schools, this fight would have been almost a non-issue at this point, of the "go ahead, keep inflicting paper cuts" variety. But then we wouldn't have a squirrel literally eating human eyes right now.

And then there's Lyra... The power of a dragon. The personality of a cat. And what does a cat do to mice? Do Not Fuck With Lyra. That is all.

The battle between Claron and Lyra plays out more or less identically no matter what path Elruin takes in the story. Other consequences of this war change based on lots of things (including which side of the conflict Elruin stands on), but this is going to be the "first big cinematic" of the game.

Investigator: Show us on the doll where the bad man touched you...
Elruin: Here, here, especially here, and... is something wrong?
Investigator: Sorry, it's just that usually when I do this, it's not with remains of the man who did the touching.

 

Suggested Listening

The earth shook beneath Elruin's feet, while the elemental magics screamed in her ears. She stumbled at the pain which overwhelmed that of her back, stomach, and arm. Such power went beyond imagination and into insanity. For a moment, she lost control of her magic and her muscles, collapsing to her knees.

The local infrastructure wasn't doing much better than the necromancer. As she struggled to her feet, a nearby building collapsed at the foundation. Six glowing auras that were human beings flicked out of existence in a heartbeat, a dozen wounded, and another dozen trapped in what they had hoped was their sanctuary.

Elruin forced herself to walk, drew upon the power of the fresh dead to restore her magic enough to bring her defenses back up.

Moments later, her shadows were cut away by the sweep of a guisarme and searing hot air. "Die, de-" The woman, clad in heavy armor of gemstone blue, hesitated for a second upon seeing Elruin without the benefit of concealing shadows. "You're a child!"

"Please, let me go," Elruin pleaded. "I need to find Cali."

"No." Her hands tightened on the blade. "Child or not, you've killed too many of us, already."

Elruin sang to her magic, calling up the shadows to protect her, met with the same fate as the last. This woman's magic was air and fire, normally mages of that sort were fragile, which might explain her heavy armor.

Elruin took a step back, then fired off a bolt of energy, and another.

The first, she sidestepped, the other she cut with her weapon.

She's testing my abilities. Elruin recognized the careful tactic; she was being distracted and slowed, contained, while the battle raged around them. "I don't want to fight you."

"I'd ask you to surrender to my custody, promise you fair treatment as a prisoner, but we both know that's not possible." The armored woman's weary voice was a whisper, but one Elruin could hear as if it was next to her. "You've killed too many, too identifiably. Emerit wasn't much older than you. Do you even care about the people who died?"

At this distance, Elruin didn't know if she could hit the woman, and didn't want to waste power on missing time and time again. "We didn't ask you to attack our home." She started walking toward the front of the city, where Cali would be found. If her enemy got closer, then they would fight.

"No, but you serve those who attacked ours." A healthy adult woman required no effort to chase a wounded child, as unhappy as the prospect of of executing her was. "You're too wounded to run, too exhausted to fight. Lay down your arms and I promise a quick, painless death." She fought down the bitterness. "It's more mercy than you've shown your victims."

Elruin tapped into her sarite, for the dust storm it could generate. Dirt and debris kicked up, hiding her with something tangible, rather than the ephemeral darkness that was her natural ability.

The woman did nothing but step closer, her weapon pointed at Elruin. Then she whirled, bringing her weapon up where it made the sharp clang of metal striking metal.

Elruin guessed it was an arrow or crossbow bolt, but what was more important was that it put her off her guard, so Elruin fired a pulse of energy at the now distracted enemy. It struck home, some of it even got through her armor, but this was a health and trained mage of no insignificant power, much stronger than her enemies thus far.

"Oof." She twirled back on the necromancer. "I'd accuse you of dishonor, but I am about to murder a child. That you deserve it for your actions notwithstanding."

She moved with shocking speed, for someone in heavy armor. Elruin had thought the metal-clad warriors would be slow, but not this one. Another bolt of death energy was sidestepped, and only slowed the woman's advance.

The swing from the guisarme should have been a decapitating strike, but instead Elruin was treated to the foul smell of sweaty unwashed canine underbelly, and the cackling howl of an enraged beast.

A quick snap, and the weapon broke in two. The mork bolted forward, slamming into the woman and getting a grip on her helmet with his teeth. A burst of flame seared the beast's mouth, burned away its tongue.

Elruin felt the additional energies of the mork, that of undeath and the sonnet of synchronized power that bolstered her magic in this churning sea of magical chaos. She drew both her hands together, and expended what was left of her strength into the chest of the woman who had almost ended her life. Struggling ceased, and both the woman and Elruin dropped.

"Just a little longer," Scratch said. His mork body bled profusely, and its mouth was so mangled that Elruin could understand his words only through the power of Requiem. The mork rested next to Elruin. "There is still life in your body, use it to climb up."

Elruin had to pull on his fur to drag herself to her feet, then struggle her way up on the beast's back. Once his passenger had her grip, Scratch began walking away from the barracks. "Wait. Cali..."

"Lost cause, kid," Scratch said. "My oath was me first, you second, everyone else distant third if ever. She'll have to find her own way. We need out of the city while there's a chance. Even that's pushing our luck."

The sky flickered, the sky replaced by the warped dome of a human face. Lord Garit, his formerly handsome now face bloodied and wounded, was visible to the city from above. "People of Arila, I am Lord Garit. On my mother's behalf, I order you to lay down your arms."

"Merat! Coward!" Scratch didn't care so much about the cowardice, only that it was inconvenient for him and his half-formed plans to escape with the child necromancer that anchored him to sanity.

"The shelter," Elruin mumbled. Gripping the coarse, wiry fur of the mork was the most effort she could exert at the moment. "It's got nonviolence magic. They can't hurt us, not there."

"Why don't you ask me to walk into a hell made of flaming dung? At least then I can laugh at everyone else trapped with me." Complaint vocalized, the mork began a swift retreat to the poor side of town, a trail of blood behind it.

Lord Garit continued his surrender speech. "The battle has been lost. I beseech you, do not add to the tragedy by continuing a hopeless resistance."

Only a handful of people had the power to keep up with a mork at full run, and those had exhausted themselves fighting other, more immediate, threats. Or were still dealing with the holdouts who refused to surrender. A wounded mork was something to be dealt with later.

Half-aware, Elruin watched the heart of the mork dying a slow death to injury and the creep of taint through its bones. It accelerated faster in the mork than it had in the man from before. She would have to consider what caused this when she wasn't so tired.

"Enge's Guard, I have given my Oathbond, as has Lady Juna and Duchess Erta, that there will be peace. Our new ruler, King Claron, has given his Oathbond that the prisoners of war will be treated well, and peacefully released."

Soon, they were at the shelter, screams of fear and confusion elicited by those of the poor district who were thus far spared much of the violence. Perhaps the only upside of having no wealth, no power, and no strategic value: there was no need for the invaders to subjugate them.

Suggested Listening

The mork stopped right upon passing through the barricade, then backed away and collapsed on the less restrictive side. "Go, I'm fine here." The worst case, where Scratch was concerned, was the death of a body he cared nothing for. He'd long ago lost count of how many bodies he'd destroyed over the centuries.

Elruin slid down the beast's back, miserable about the need to walk, but happy to get away from the stench of unwashed coyote-monster.

Above them, the face changed, to that of Claron. He held up his hand, showing the magical ink of the official seal of Arila. To those educated on the subject, they knew it should include the magical signature of a voluntary Oathbond. Some closer to the action might also note the lack of blemish and scar on his body, save that of the eye socket and the artifact that it held.

"I have sworn to protect the citizens of Arila. My citizens. Know that you are all under my protection, and my oath to do what is best for all of you. Those who have fought have done so honorably. Surrender, accept your peacebonds, and you will not be punished for your resistance to this moment. Continue to resist, and know the fate of all murderers and traitors."

A handful of the shelter residents approached her, once it became clear the half-dead mork would be staying behind on the dirt path. Some eyed it, considering that it was more food than most of them had ever seen at one time, then decided that they weren't that hungry.

Carried by two girls a little older than her, Elruin was brought near the central pillar.

Grandmother gasped when she saw the girl. "We don't have a healer, but we'll do what we can."

They laid Elruin face-down on a table, then went through a long, slow process of pulling shards of metal from her back. "I don't know how you survived those wounds. Erra, get the salve. If we can hold out long enough, maybe a healer will get to us." Grandmother hated herself for lying, but she did so for the sake of all the children here, including the one who might bleed to death on a table.

Erra arrived soon, carrying a brackish tarlike substance made mostly of pine sap.

"I know, this stuff feels disgusting, but it will help you," Erra said. Using a wood spoon, she began the slow, careful process of coating the child's back to seal all the wounds she suffered in her battles. "Relax, you're safe now."

"Thank you." Elruin mumbled, but it wasn't her she was worried about. She wondered where Cali was, if she was alright, and hoped that Lemia would forgive her for going to save her other friend instead.

Shouting interrupted Elruin's treatment, which had just moved to her stomach.

A man, Lord Claron, marched into the field of peace, straight for the girl. In person, he seemed both more and less than he had been in the sky-illusion. He was tall, muscular, and reminded Elruin all too much of Father in spite of having almost the opposite hair and beard color. "You are Elruin. You will come with me."

Elruin looked him in the eye, defiant; he was the man who kept her from Cali and hurt so many. "Merat ne."

"That was not a request, child." In here, he could not directly threaten, but he was imposing and powerful. "Emperor Enge himself demands you to be taken before his holy presence and sacrificed."

"But why?" Elruin gasped with everyone else. Did Enge know about Scratch, or Clackybones? She knew others thought the undead were bad, but she didn't think she'd done anything so wrong that a god would seek her death. "You have an Oathbond to serve all citizens of Arila."

"Because that is what Enge demands," Claron stated. "I did not ask for particulars. I would throw down my life if it means his happiness, as would all true citizens of the empire. Enge's will is Arila, and all who live here. Show your devotion to your lord, come willingly, and accept your fate with the joy that all should feel in the name of serving their god."

"I don't believe you!" Elruin began to tap into the power of the shelter, or the power trapped beneath it. She couldn't use it as a weapon, but she could make herself look intimidating.

"Then I see now why Enge demands your death," Claron drew his sword. "You are a traitor and a heretic before our god." His Oathbond pulsed, displeased with him violating his promise to serve the interests of Arila, but it settled itself in moments. Claron was a holy warrior, doing as Enge instructed, and he believed that serving his god was serving Arila, its citizens, and all other cities and good people of the empire.

That settled, he made a handful of mental calculations as he considered his next move. Severing the magic which forced peace upon this place would be difficult, but not impossible with the powers his god granted him. Taking the child would require little effort after, even if she wasn't wounded.

The roiling necromantic power that would be unleashed in breaking the pillar, however, would kill hundreds before it could be plugged. More likely than not, the girl he was meant to take alive would not survive. He could not risk her death, but he could take her measure without provoking the peace of their shelter.

She was tough, an earth mage and a decent one at that. "All those who hide here, know that you may make your choice. In five minutes my archers will pelt this shelter with arrows, flee from this place or die."

This Elruin would survive, so long as he specified to use only wooden practice arrows. Everyone else would have to flee from the pillar.

"Enge would never kill a child!" Erra stepped in front of the young necromancer, shaking in rage with tears running down her face. "You don't serve our lord! You serve a fake, an impostor, a monster that murders children!"

The young woman punched Claron, an act that was possible only because she knew she had no ability to harm him. She could hit him until her hands were nothing but bloodied stumps, and it would not cause a bruise on his skin, let alone when he was in his armor.

"Then you die as-"

In that moment, Lyra appeared from nowhere, standing next to Erra. Devout, brave, willing to die for what she believed was right, and who had lived a life of helping others. The dryad found her new person, and woe to any who would threaten her.

Claron hesitated, reassessed his calculations. To order his men to fire upon Lyra's pet would be to order a suicide attack. Only he possessed the strength to fight that killing machine. With him wounded, and the magic of the tower, he knew he would lose the rematch.

"Very well." He stepped back, then projected his voice to the crowd. "Know that this is the traitor's prison! Those who leave now are free to go, those who remain commit the greatest of all sins! Treason against our God and Emperor! All who provide succor, aid that treason. Those that remain, can stay here until they starve!"

Claron walked away, while his men remained behind setting up barricades. It may have been the first time in history that a siege began after the city was taken, but this was the will of their king, and they would obey for the sake of the future they dreamed of.


=====

The. Plot. Thickens.

This chapter makes me sad because Kisadra died without the players even knowing her name. She and Emerit are companion characters in other routes. I promise you, they're quite amicable when they're not trying to kill you. Kisadra would be the frontline tank, while Emerit takes a more stealth-glass cannon role. In the Ghosts path, they're amongst the group Elruin can train with to bring up her skills rather than the schools of the Imperial path.

I like both characters. Kisadra, despite being a rather destructive and energetic element, is perhaps the most stereotypically "earth aspect" personality in the entire game, teaching a cautious and defensive combat style. Emerit, a bit of a prankster type, who has an emotional breakdown after the Siege of Arila- he isn't much older than Elruin, and this is the first time he's ever had to kill.

Erra's a character that is a potential friend on many paths, but only recruitable on the Respite/Church oriented path of the game, but I don't see her being a boss fight. Having her as a companion does mean having Lyra as a party member in the late game. It comes with a lot of opportunity costs in other areas, including having to spend two "companion slots" for the sake of one combatant... is she worth two party members? Yeah, probably. Is she worth two members and all the other stuff? Well, I hope to make that 'debatable'. Certainly, a path that players won't feel too put out by pursuing. Also, scenes of Lyra purring while getting scratches.

This particular set of scenes in the game are part of a 'challenge gauntlet' where our hero fights/stealths/others her way through progressively more difficult battles, and is granted rewards based upon how far she gets.

Yes, Cali *could* have been saved. Would have required either A: more combat training, or B: consuming some of Elruin's stash of sarite to replenish power and health... would have cost quite a bit of it, true, but it could have happened. My voters chose a different path. Actions (or Inactions) and Consequences. They are the backbone of my storytelling.

And this is yet another scene where the game will have to censor the fact that Elruin's partially undressed for the sake of medical necessity.

 

Suggested Listening

Watching Claron leave, Elruin considered the situation for a moment. Stepping forward, an act which hurt less than it had in the moments before Lyra arrived, Elruin shouted at the retreating conquerer. "Wait!" It still hurt to shout, or to breathe at all, but it was easier. "The people here have nowhere else to go! You'll give them a place to stay, food and shelter. Or..."

She didn't have much leverage, save that he wanted her alive. "Or I'll kill myself. Then what will you do?" For unknown reasons that theologians and preachers loved to speculate upon, suicides could not be revived by any known means of resurrection magic.

"A bluff that I'm tempted to call." Claron stopped, but did not turn to face her. He also used some sort of projection magic to carry his voice far further than a normal voice could carry, let alone the voice of a prepubescent child. "No good person in the city need fear me, nor starvation, nor the elements. I have already set my men to taking control of some of the more opulent homes belonging to the unworthy nobles. Hundreds could live in those mansions, no need for a shanty town and begging for scraps from their former enslavers!"

This was a man who had spent his life as a statesman, he had confidence, charisma, and a message these starving masses wanted to hear. Elruin was losing the crowd, though she didn't recognize it and couldn't have stopped him if she tried.

Claron spread his arms, as if to hug those gathered. "All are equal before Enge, our Emperor, and our Ancestor. Those who hoard wealth and food do so by stealing from his blessed people, and by his blessings, I shall bring their tyranny to an end!"

"You said you were going to fire on them!" Elruin shouted, her little-girl voice small and weak against his.

"I said I was going to fire on you." Claron showed no emotion save passion. "You, who Enge demands be sacrificed. You, a heretic! I offered everyone else a warning, time to get clear so that you could not hide behind them. I suppose I should commend you for allowing your hostages to go free, but would you have done so if you didn't need them? Now that you have that monster as a shield, the rest are little more than extra mouths to feed."

"Of course I would let them go anyway!" Elruin shouted. This was getting far enough out of her control that now she could recognize it, and so she did as any child would do and attempted to deflect the conversation elsewhere. "You're afraid of Lyra!"

"I'm afraid of what happens if it goes out of control, again." Claron spoke to the crowd, rather than the defiant young necromancer. "When we clashed, it was for mere seconds, and it brought down a portion of the wall. I doubt the city could survive the violence necessary to kill that thing."

The people gasped and murmured at the idea that Claron was strong enough to fight Lyra. Few had direct knowledge of the dryad's power, but the Ecrosian priests regarded her as a being of holy power too great for any mortal to challenge. To say nothing of the idea that a segment of the wall was destroyed by accident alone.

There would be skeptics who believed he was lying, some might even voice those doubts, but they would find hundreds of witnesses to the battle. This would discredit the doubters, call into question the wisdom of the priests, the claims of Lyra's greatness, and much of their accepted worldview. The answer to this otherwise impossible paradox would soon occur to some priest: Claron was a god. A lesser god, perhaps, but still a being which towered over mortals.

"Blessed by Enge though I am," Claron said, well aware of the sparks of speculation which would soon become a wildfire. He would have his own spymasters spread the desirable message, if it did not emerge on its own. "Even I cannot protect everyone if the walls go down."

His position solidified despite, perhaps somewhat because of, those who resisted, it was time to leave. Staying longer would accomplish nothing, and may even risk making him look ineffectual. Using a defiant child as an opportunity for an impromptu speech was quite a different thing than actually arguing with a child.

He walked away, shouting orders to the men and women under his command as he went. Gods need not concern themselves with the sexes of those they address, for much the same reason humans didn't show such deference to animals. Those leaving the shelter, save the necromancer, would be free to go unharmed. Meanwhile, food and medical supplies confiscated from the city's own nobility would be provided in full view of those hiding behind their magical barrier. He could not attack them directly, so he would sap their morale.

Many within the bounds of the shelter retreated from an area that was the safest place within the city, but a remarkable number stayed behind. Children without parents to protect them, women who feared Claron's men would take the traditional rewards of a conquering army, men who had nowhere else to go. All had their reasons, and even the insistence of Elruin and Erra was not enough to dissuade them.

Soon, they were forced to address their situation. Food would last a week, maybe two at this rate, and water was unreliable at best. The one saving grace, such as it was, is that they now had plenty of space to work with and an almost limitless supply of necromantic energy to call upon. Not that Elruin knew how that would be useful in this situation.

Suggested Listening

"Grandmother, what shall we do?"

The camp's unofficial leader looked at the young woman. "I should ask you that, dear. You're in charge, now."

Erra blinked, starred at the woman. "But this is your camp."

The old woman smiled. "Lyra has chosen you, dear." She reached toward the dryad, who approached and allowed herself to be scratched on the back of the head. This act seemed enough to reinvigorate the woman. "Guide her hand as Rena failed to do."

"Hey!" Elruin cut in. "Rena was a nice lady!"

"Rena was a fine woman, a loving soul who never said a bad word about anyone," Grandmother said to the little necromancer. "But she lacked the ambition to live up to her predecessors. I'm old enough to remember some of Lyra's past minders. They were vigorous, vibrant women of boundless imagination and hope for the future. We need a woman like them, today."

"But." Erra looked at the dryad, which was content to sit and accept her hair being pet. "I don't want that sort of power."

Grandmother chuckled. "Child, if you wanted Lyra's power, she would never have chosen you. The dryad has never taken a handler who wanted power. The church likes to keep that a secret. No small number of women start 'discovering faith' when a handler grows old. Some, perhaps, are even genuine in their belief that they can do great good with Lyra's help, but the act of wanting that power places it outside their reach forever. I imagine they wouldn't donate so much time and money if they knew that little secret."

"You have to," Elruin said. "We need Lyra's help."

"Now more than ever," Grandmother agreed. "But it must be Erra's decision."

The two dozen people of two hundred who remained had gathered around to listen to the story, or just to see what the excitement was about. Erra looked out at them: some friends, some family, some strangers, but all had chosen to stay in this prison knowing the risk. "We'll start with what we need most," she said. "We have supplies, but without being able to bring in more timber for warmth we only have so long."

"I can help!" Elruin said. Fundamental magic wasn't great on the offense, but it could generate basic heat. Besides, she still had a sarite shard which could create lightning.

Erra nodded. "Medicine won't be needed as long as Lyra's around. Our problems are going to be food and water, which we will run low on, especially if Claron orders his mages to prevent it from raining on our shelter." Erra knelt down behind the little dryad, who was content kneeling in front of Grandmother. "Lyra, if you can understand me, can you give us food and water?"

The dryad's eyes had never closed, for she had no eyelids, but her head did snap up as she considered the emotions of her new human. She flitted into the sky moments later, while everyone in and out of the forming barricade watched. The soldiers reading their spears and bows, as if such weapons were more than mere cobwebs to be brushed aside.

She flew like a dragonfly around the central pillar, then moved to the far side of the pillar from the bubble of concentrated death energies.

The soil rumble beneath their feet, as the song of magic rose in Elruin's ears. Lyra didn't sing, she didn't need to Reveal, she used magic the way humans used their heartbeats. Strings of moss that formed Lyra's hair fell and were caught in a whirlwind until they spiraled all the way to the ground. Then they erupted into life, vines climbing their way up into the sky on invisible trellises.

The pillars of life spread, found one another, wove themselves together, and created a single wall, a broad and squat hollow tree. Long, narrow branches like those of a willow rolled down, curtains of greenery which pulsed with life energy. Lyra, deciding her work was finished, flew into the jungle of soft branches to take a well-earned nap. Her human could have the rest of the tree, but the boughs belonged to her.

Within, Elruin could see that there was a living floorplan, hexagonal rooms like those of a bee hive. "There's room inside for everyone," she said. "And I bet those vines are edible, just like they were at Cali's place."

She didn't know it, but the trunk would serve as excellent insulation, enough that they would rarely need to rely on her power to warm the building. Nor could she know that Lyra also mirrored the techniques of termite colonies to cycle dirty air out and fresh air in. It was a triumph of magical engineering built off the triumphs of natural engineering, a perfect home for her human.

Erra reminded herself to breathe, and fought down panic. To control power on such a scale was something she imagined belonged only to gods, yet here she stood with such a being at her command. She knew now why Lyra chose people who did not want her power; the ones who did could use her to reshape the world.

Unable to stop her voice from shaking, she gave orders. "Everyone, help one another move indoors. The elders get the rooms nearest the entrance, children near the back. Healthy adults on the second level, unless you need to stay with a child or elder. And with Lyra here, I think all adults will be healthy soon."

As they went to work, a large gray canine with a burnt mouth limped toward the entrance. "You make all the most interesting friends."

Erra stared at the beast, her spell of awe broken in the face of the mangled predator. "Is this... yours?" Mork weren't known for their brilliance, but they were intelligent enough to speak, so she didn't want to be rude.

"Nah, it's mine," a ghostly black face came up through the eye of the beast. "I'm with her, though. Name's Scratch, 'till I get bored with it. Figure if we're gonna be here a while, I'd better get acquainted with the landlady. While her bodyguard is taking a break."

"I'm not a lady." In one day, Erra had gone from an unimportant woman who was single because she wasn't important enough to marry, to one of the most powerful people in the empire, with all sorts of supernatural beings showing interest in her. "What are you?"

"You are, now," Scratch said. "As for what I am? Well, that's a difficult philosophical and thaumaturgical question. What I ain't is a philosopher or thaumaturge, that I can say for certain. Suffice it to say I'm a distant relative of your pet. About as distant as a snake is to a dragon. I'm the snake, if that wasn't obvious by me skulking about in this husk while she's bending nature over like a whore."

"Scratch is..." Elruin was about to say he was nice, but she knew better. "He's helped me lots. I'm sure he wants to help you, too."

"Like what, exactly?"

"First, to clear matters up, I work for Elruin, not you," Scratch said. "But since you were kind enough not to truss her up and hand her over like a fresh goose, I'm willing to help with one thing I know she can't do. I can get messages to and from the outside."

"You can?"

"Within reason," Scratch added. "I can't use magic to find people, so you need to be clear where I'm going and who I'm talking to. And while I can sneak past these guards, don't expect me to be getting through the wall, or antimagic prisons. Normal people, normal messages. And I need one promise from you."

"You like being mysterious, don't you?" Erra asked. "I'm not giving promises without knowing what they are ahead of time."

"Figured, but had to try," Scratch said. "Just convince your dryad to ignore me, is all. I've met beings like her before, they can get territorial, and trust me when I say I don't stand a ghost of a chance against her. I'll stay over on the opposite side of the camp, you come visit me if you need anything, and we'll pool our resources to fix our problems once and for all. Deal?"

It wasn't lost on Elruin that the opposite side of the camp was where they kept the sick houses, and thus the pooled death energies.

Erra, too, recognized where Scratch would be staying, which she considered fine since it was the least desirable part of the camp. Perhaps Lyra could fix it with time, but for now it dry, good-for-nothing soil. "Don't pull anything that hurts us, and you have a deal."

"Deal, but remember, I'm here with Elruin. Betray her and we'll have problems."

Erra looked at the dark-haired girl who had done nothing wrong save earn the ire of a violent nobleman with delusions of grandeur. "Don't worry, I won't let anyone hurt her here." With Lyra around, Erra could enforce such a promise. "But I can think of a handful of ways to use your abilities. Starting with Priestess Lissa."


=====

Charisma battle between skilled aristocrat with godly powers, and little girl who, while powerful, isn't a freakin' god. It was never a fair competition.

I've always found "chosen one" tropes to be perhaps the most annoying goddamn thing ever. But... it's kinda fun in a polytheistic animist universe, since there can be dozens of chosen ones, all of whom are working against each other. Hilarity ensues.

Lyra does as Lyra wants to do.

In the "planned" layout of this story, the 'shelter' scenes were only intended to be part of the "Angel of Death" story path, where Elruin becomes deeply involved with the church and religious activity. Oh well, I like these scenes so I'm glad to (partially) use them here. But the "plot path" was intended for Scratch to come in and escape the city with Elruin in tow, rather than this.

 

Suggested Listening

"Aight, so here's the deal," Scratch said from his perch in the dead mork's eye. It had been dead from day one, else he couldn't have marched it into the nonviolence zone without losing control. Another of his many, many secrets. "Lissa says they ain't gonna do a thing to help."

"What? Why!" Erra stepped forward, almost put her hands on the monster, then stepped back. She didn't know it was dead, nor what might provoke it to wake up in spite of Scratch's control. "Lissa was always a friend to us."

"Yeah, you don't hear what's going on in the streets." Scratch leaned back, as if sitting in a hot tub, instead of a dead monster's eye socket. "Half the city's convinced Claron's a god, some are saying he's a Scion of Enge."

"That's absurd!" Erra shouted. "He can't be! How do the Truthsayers not see it? How is he not cast out for heresy?"

"Near as I can tell, he never claimed to be a god or scion. Whenever anyone brings it up in his presence, he says he's nothing more than a servant of Enge. Which doesn't refute the godhood theory, but doesn't support it either. Entek na Arila. Which they eat up like the colon leeches they are. Besides, who's going to cast him out? You are the only person in the city with the power to scratch him."

Erra looked away in shame. "I can't. I'm... I'm not a warrior. I don't know how to use Lyra in battle."

"You don't need to," Scratch said. "She can rip his head off on her own, then we can take turns shitting down the neck-hole. Well, you can, I'm somewhat limited in that department."

Elruin reached her hand over to touch Erra's arm. "It's okay, you don't have to fight. It's better if you don't."

Erra looked back, a doubting but hopeful look in her watery eyes. "How do you know?"

"I felt them fight, before." Elruin's voice dropped to a whisper as she remembered how their collision drove her to the ground in pain. "I don't know who's stronger, but Claron wasn't lying about the city being destroyed if they fight again. Everyone else will die."

"We better listen to her," Scratch said. Everything had gone as he'd planned. "She's Revealed, makes her the expert on gaging magic power. Besides, she knows a lot more about the sarite shields than I do. She's helped fix them before." He propped his little necromancer up without a single lie, or anyone realizing that was his goal all along.

Erra looked at the necromancer in a new light. With Lyra around, it was sometimes easy to forget there was a host of beings between normal people like herself, and godlike powers like Lyra and Claron. "You know how to fix the walls?"

"A little," Elruin said. "I helped on the farm where I grew up. Before they tried to feed me to morks."

"That is messed up." Erra gave a small, self-deprecating chuckle. "Look at me, moping about as if I have problems. Overnight I went from a slum girl wondering where my next meal was coming from, to controlling more power than most queens. People would, have, killed to be in my position."

She stood. "I'm going to take stock of my so-called kingdom. I guess that makes the two of you my Archmage and spymaster, officially."

"I can help with farming, too!" Elruin offered.

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to have some variety to our diet," Erra said. "But unless you know a way to carry seeds in for us, there's nothing to farm here. Maybe Grandmother can help us with some wild herbs, but I'm afraid that's all we have for now."

"I'd love to help, but I'm notably lacking in bodies that can cross the barricades." Scratch left out the part that if he tried to carry seeds, they'd be killed in minutes. "But as your spymaster, let my first advice be the following: never hire advisors who are more loyal to each other than they are to you. Elruin's one thing, but more regents have died that way than I care to name."

"How many of them had Lyra?"

"None that I know of, but plenty had something just as good. Claron reminds me a lot of one that I knew personally. To make the story short, she learned the hard way that when people lick your boots, they're looking up your skirt for a place to shove the knife."

Erra considered that pearl of wisdom coated in Scratch's usual coarseness. It didn't strike her as too different from some of the drama that happened in the camp, especially where romantic entanglements were concerned. "That is something to consider. Thank you."

"As I float," he answered back. He watched Erra walk away, then chuckled. "When you do things right, nobody can be sure if you've done anything at all."

"I don't get it."

"I'll explain when you're older," Scratch said. "But while we're here, got a message through to Lemia. She's got a way to get us back and forth, but there's one small problem. She can use it once, one way, some sort of teleportation trick that'll get plugged right away. She can get you out, or get some supplies in, whatever you need. Up to you if you want to waste it by telling Erra and getting those seeds, but I say we keep it for an emergency. Eating tree grass never killed anyone, I assume."

"What's happening at the school? Is Lemia safe?"

"Yeah, she says she's keeping her head down and her eyes open. Smart girl, keep her around, never trust her. Seems like her classmates are terrified, and some have committed suicide. Also, one of the teachers was arrested, official charge was hoarding wealth, but Lemia thinks they're looking for some big secret or something. She has no idea what."

Suggested Listening

"I think I can answer that question." Light and magic warped, shimmered, then unwarped. Calenda stood there in civilian clothes, appearing tired but in one piece. "He's hoping our city contains a clue to how the sarite shields in Engewal were designed. Even with his power, he can't break the capital's defenses without a long, protracted, bloody siege."

"Cali!" Elruin jumped up, to give the older girl a hug. Her lifesight revealed numerous injuries old and fresh in her elder sister. "Where have you been? Are you okay? What happened? I tried to save you! I'm sorry!" She started to cry.

"Back away! She's an enemy agent!" Elruin stepped back due to Scratch's warning. She tried to bring up her magic to defend herself, but the power of the peace field prevented it.

"Are you really Cali?" Elruin didn't think her lifesight could be fooled that way. Hiding from her notice was different from creating an illusion that could make someone else look like her.

"I knew it wouldn't take long for you to figure it out." Cali slid her sleeve up, to reveal an intricate magical ink pattern on her arm. "To make my own long story short, this is a slave bond. I'd give you three guesses, but you should only need two."

"I'm going with 'not Claron'," Scratch said. "This doesn't come across as his style. And I bet you don't want to hear congratulations on your marriage."

"Lord Garit?" Elruin took the time to study the markings as they spoke. She had little experience with mind magic, but it was a very complex script. One which she would like to study, to apply to her dollies some day. For now, she was distracted by the sense of betrayal she felt toward the twins.

"I'm sorry!" She rushed back to Cali, to hold her and comfort her as best she could. "I tried. to save you! I tried so hard, but there were so many and I was tired and!"

Cali stroked the back of her head, hesitant but gentle. "I know. I know you tried. Everything will be alright, I promise."

Elruin clutched Cali harder. "I'm going to find him and make him cry forever!" She wasn't sure how, she knew she didn't have the strength to do so, and even if she did the nonviolence aura made it impossible to imagine how she might accomplish her goal.

"Don't be too harsh on him," she said. "He did it, in part, to save my life. We both want Lord Claron gone, and so long as we're both alive, we have a chance to make that day come. He hasn't forced me to do anything I didn't want, except the vows themselves."

"Which brings us to why you're here, right, Sis?"

"I'm under orders to do everything in my power to get Ell to leave the shelter, so she can be sacrificed to Enge." Calenda forced a smirk. "If that sounds familiar, it's because they based the whole thing off the last time this happened to me."

Elruin squeezed even harder "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," she said. "I think I would have stumbled into something like this sooner or later anyway. Garit's wanted me since we were children, and I... may have taken advantage of that fact once or twice. This was his chance, and he took it, but if it wasn't now it would have happened some day.Let us focus on taking advantage of this disaster. Based on the last time this happened, the best way to convince you to leave is to be completely honest with you."

"That is the most ridiculous loophole," Scratch muttered. "It can't be real."

"The spell's a sloppy expansion made under imperfect conditions stacked on another sloppy spell made under imperfect conditions. The fact that it functions at all and hasn't driven me insane is a mystery. Or maybe this is normal when it comes to mind control magic. I've sometimes wondered why nobody ever built an army of mind controlled soldiers."

"Not saying I trust you, but let's start with the obvious question. How much of that Chosen of Enge propaganda does Claron believe? I'd like to know if he's a dangerous fanatic or a dangerous liar. Can't deal with one the way you deal with the other."

"I don't know," Cali admitted. "From what I understand, he was never all that devout, but that was before he died and received that artifact. Whatever happened then is the key to all of this. I can tell you that his artifact is the real deal, however, a true Treasure of Enge, with all the power and prestige it implies. Anyone Enge deems unworthy will die upon touching it."

"So he's got Enge's left testicle to replace his eye?" Scratch scoffed. "Ain't the first to glimpse beyond, then come back crazy. Or get hold of powerful artifacts to the same result. A double-whammy could break even a strong mind."

"What I can't explain, is that Enge usually operates through the priests, or the obsidian pillars. He's never sent messengers before. He wrote notes. The smart decision might be to escape, then march to the Throne ourselves. We can ask Enge directly if he wants Elruin sacrificed."

"Which, if he does, puts us right there where you can push her into the volcano, huh?"

Calenda sighed. "It would fulfill the slavebond, true. Or it will be revealed that Enge never wanted Elruin sacrificed, and thus break the slavebond. Either way, I'm free."

"Which I'm sure Claron is waiting for. If we get past him, we all die on the march up a mountain of monsters," Scratch countered. "Myself excluded, maybe. It's a terrible, terrible idea. Even if we do make it to Enge, if the volcano wants toasted necromancer for dinner, he can climb into his own hole and die! The gods may have power and knowledge to spare, but there's nothing special about them. They have conflicts and wars of their own, they fear death, more than one has even pulled themselves back from death as I have. If a god wants to kill Elruin, let him come do it himself."

Elruin stared at Scratch for a moment. This was the first she'd ever heard of a god becoming undead, or for that matter dying. It was something she'd need to consider in the future.

"And violence isn't possible, so I can't try to drag Ell out." Hands trembling, Cali pushed Elruin back. "I'll leave now, recover, and come back in a few days. Maybe I can think of a way to convince you to come out by then."

As her two friends argued, Elruin was busy studying the runes. She had a way to save Cali, but she wasn't certain Cali would want it since it meant she would have to die. Even then, the means Elruin would need to use to bring her back would horrify her adoptive sister, savior, and best friend.

=====

Entek na Arila- would literally refer to the sewage system of the city. In the context of the sentence, Scratch is referring to the population of the city as sewage.

There are no actual colon leeches in Midara. But there are leeches, and there are colons, and both behave as they do in our world. Scratch likes scatological insults, for whatever reason.

Scratch is also an expert wingman... shadow... ghost... thing... point is, he likes setting things up so that Elruin looks good.

 

Suggested Listening


"You can stay here," Elruin offered. She hoped it wasn't rude to do so, since Erra and Grandmother were charge of the camp.

"I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but." Cali tried to still her shaking hands. "Will that help? Honestly, will that make it more likely to fulfill this bond?"

Elruin couldn't answer, since she felt sure the answer was no. Scratch stepped in for her. "Speakin' as someone who's used cowardice to live a long, full life, so to speak, I can't say what you stayin' would do. I can tell you that the current plan is to stay here on our potentially nonexistent asses until we have a plan. Right now it looks like the plan is to wait for the would-be king to die of old age."

"Won't work." Cali steadied herself. "I guess it won't hurt to stay for a while, if it improves the odds. But I'm trying to convince myself leaving improves the odds because I don't want to Ell as someone's sacrifice."

"I want you to stay!" Elruin insisted. She hadn't yet decided how to fix what happened to Cali, but her staying would make it better.

"Leaving means the odds are at zero and stay at zero," Scratch said. "Stick around, and there's a slim chance the odds become something other than zero. Oh, hey, looks like it's time for me to vanish. I'll have Elruin sing me the details later." Scratch dropped into the soil, not moments before the buzz of wings began.

Lyra landed nearby, then began to sniff the air. She snarled, as much as her insectoid mouth-parts would allow, looking for the infuriating thing which somehow evaded her at every turn. Then she took notice of Cali.

"I missed you, Lyra." Calenda stepped forward, then hugged the little dryad as hard as she could. The dryad hugged her back, but without such force. "I know, I miss her, too."

The dryad began the soft humming that she used to indicate contentment, and hugged back. Soon they settled into a pattern of Cali giving scratches in various locations while Lyra moved about to indicate the spots she wanted the most attention at that moment.

"Priestess Calenda!" Erra had followed Lyra out. Still uncertain of her own position within the church hierarchy, she held her hands together and bowed. "Please tell me, how are you here? Why? I'm sorry, I-"

"Enough of that," Cali said. "Only the high priests outrank you now. Besides, I'm not even a priestess anymore. They disavowed me out when Claron declared me a traitor and had me imprisoned."

"They can't do that!" Lyra's head and wings sprang up in response to Erra's anger. Was it the skulking presence? She hoped it was the skulking presence. "No, Lyra, there's no danger." The disappointed dryad curled back up to Cali.

"I was also discharged from the guard, and it remains to be seen if anything of my noble titles survive. It's the guard that stings most, I think. I suppose I have Garit to thank for stopping the torture and execution. The marriage stunt may have been self-serving on his part, but I he did save my life, at considerable risk to his own safety and perhaps survival.

Erra said nothing. She knew the unfairness of life, and that everyone had a different view of what unfairness was, but she'd given up on any hope to marry anyone, let alone a future duke. She made peace with a life of celibacy, since the best a poor and less than attractive woman like her could hope for was a lover who didn't abandon her the moment she got pregnant.

Elruin, too, had no thoughts to offer. She was too young for marriage to be a consideration, and now she was more concerned with the bad man who wanted to kill her in the name of Enge.

"The church is in chaos." Cali dropped the subject, unwilling to commiserate any further. "Everything's in chaos, but especially the church. Normally the solution would be simple: the high priests hold the moot, then act accordingly. They've tried twice that I know about, but Enge hasn't responded, and they don't know what to do. I think that's why he's so desperate to have you sacrificed. If Enge acknowledges him to the priests, then they will kneel without hesitation. The entire empire becomes his with a single edict."

"And until an edict comes, they won't stand against him," Erra concluded.

"More like can't." Cali scratched Lyra harder; she couldn't hurt the dryad if she tried, and it was nice to relieve a little stress. "Carrying one of Enge's artifacts should be proof enough of right to rule, but Claron is giving orders that specifically violate scripture, but he's doing so in ways that provide charity to the poor, so there's confusion in the ranks. More to the point, he's too powerful to oppose. Only Lyra can challenge him, and he's working on changing that."

"Is that possible?" Elruin asked.

"I don't know that it's impossible," Cali said. "And he needs it for more than just fighting Lyra. He's already taken Milet and Lesel, and is preparing to move to other cities in the near future. Right now, he seems to want to find some special way to attack Engewal, either by taking control of the Palici, or with a weapon that can threaten them in combat and end the war in a single battle. If that fails, he's going to take all of Engeval except the capital city, and starve it out."

"And if Claron can force Engewal's surrender, he'll have command over the church, and therefor command of the Palici." Elruin knew Palici were the guarding spirits of Engewal, much as Lyra was here in Arila. Unlike Lyra, they had no human handlers, and remained asleep much of the time. Whether the twins were stronger than Lyra was unknown, but it appeared Claron wasn't taking any chances.

"The worst part is, Engewal doesn't know there's a threat," Calenda added. "Not to this scale, at least. The rainy season's over, but it will be another month before the crops are ready for transport. If those trade caravans never reach Engewal, they will face shortages by the end of the year. It may take two, perhaps three years for Engewal to run low on supplies, but they will run low. People will die."

"And they can't send their armies out to reclaim farms, because Claron will know and attack them himself." There were a handful of the strongest dragonslayers who might be able to stop Claron, but they couldn't be everywhere at once. "Luring him into an ambush might work."

"Which requires someone getting out of here and warning the remaining free cities." Cali squeezed down on the purring Lyra, who enjoyed her vigorous massage. "And making it through the wilderness while Claron's forces hunt them down. The one saving grace would be that they can't send more than a few at a time without the risk of drawing powerful monsters. But none of that matters, since we can't even escape-."

Lyra roused herself from her comfy spot under Cali's ministrations, then walked several feet away. Earth rumbled and cracked, then a hole fell away, leaving a pit behind.

"I... think it goes outside," Erra said. "It's difficult for me to figure out her mood at times."

"Well, that's inconvenient." Cali brushed some of Lyra's moss off her clothes. "Now Claron will know that you have a way to escape the city. He'll have the exit path found, and blocked off."

Lyra looked back, regarding the girls for a moment before stomping her foot next to the hole. Distant echoes could be heard through the pit she'd made. She then flitted away, back to her nest in the trees.

"I... think there are now dozens of exit-holes around the city in every direction. I hope they don't last long, or we'll have monsters sneaking under the walls in no time."

"Then I'm going with you," Cali declared.

"Sorry, Sis, I see where that goes." Scratch stuck his head out of the ground beneath Elruin's feet. "We go down that pit, then seconds after we climb out the other side, we have an unconscious necromancer being dragged right back to the wall. Claron pisses himself in joy, and I'm back to looking for a new partner. Entek ne."

Erra stepped toward the ghost. "Priestess Calenda would never!"

"That's my cue to leave." Scratch dropped beneath the earth followed not long after by Lyra landing near Elruin.

Erra began to rub the dryad's back. "Lyra, it's fine, nobody's in danger. I promise, I'll call you if I need help."

"I'm afraid I made you a liar, twice," Cali said. She drew her sleeve back to reveal the magical ink. "Elruin is in danger, because of me. I'm magically bound to deliver Elruin to Claron's clutches, using any method I can think of. Prioritizing the plans I think are most likely first."

"And telling her that's the plan is your best idea? No offense, but that sounds crazy."

"Well, I can't force her to leave thanks to this peace magic, so the easiest plan can't work. And nothing's forcing me to think very hard about my plan. Besides, being honest opened a way out of the city, and now all I have to do is convince Elruin to leave with me. If that fails, then I will go warn. So if it's crazy, but it works, then it's not crazy, is it?"

"Well, then I can have Lyra take you prisoner." Erra stood tall, while the dryad approached. "Don't worry, nobody will hurt you, and we'll keep you comfortable, but you won't be able to do anything to harm Elruin."

"I'd rather you didn't," Cali said. "But I'd be forced to say that by the spell, regardless of its truth."


=====

A/N- Did anyone really think Claron was just going to take one city and stop there? Honestly?

Also, there are more beings at Lyra's power than just Lyra. Most of the largest cities have at least one such guardian.

My apologies for not having an update yesterday. It was about 5 different disasters all at once. I was too stressed to think properly, let alone write.

Which means I had to wait before announcing that one of my lovely, lovely readers has this contribution to show:

I may be biased, but I think he's the most precious stuffed animal ever made.

 

Suggested Listening

"I guess we don't have much choice, then." Lyra was moving before Erra spoke. "Don't worry, I promise you'll be well cared for and kept safe."

"Would it sound insane if I said I was hoping you'd do this all along?" Cali walked toward Lyra, knowing full well that any attempt to resist the dryad would be futile and unpleasant. Instead, a scratch behind where the ear would be if she had any, and taking a moment to speak to Elruin. "Hey, Ell, promise you'll come visit when you get the chance? I think I'll go insane if I'm cooped up too long. It's not a mind control thing, I hope, I've never done well in captivity. Which is why I joined the Scouts in the first place."

"I promise," Elruin said. She ran over to give Cali a hug before she left. "Even though you're being forced to try to kill me, you're still my favorite elder sister ever."

"I think that says more about your family than it does me," Cali said. "Trust me when I say mine's not much better. I bet they're glad Claron showed up, gave them the excuse to disavow me. I bet some of them wrote those speeches years ago."

"That's horrid!" Erra put her hand up to cover her mouth. "How could they do that?"

"It's tough, at the top," Cali said. "Always looking above you to find your opportunity to claim more powerful. Always looking below, to spot those who want to take your place. Surrounded on all sides by people who'd throw you to the wolves- uh, sorry, Ell."

Elruin hugged Cali tighter, while Lyra stood watching. "I'd never do that to you! When this is over, I'm going to hunt all of them down and make them sorry."

Calenda chuckled. "Oh, they're sorry enough as is. Both of us were part of their house, and after all the praise they gave you after that healing stunt, well, let's just say they've been humiliated, and some lost their holdings to Claron's new plans for the city. Meanwhile, I've got Duchess Consort as a title, which is better than most of them can hope for. So, don't be too hard on them, same as how I let your family walk away."

"Fine. But I still get to hate them."

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't." Calenda extracted herself from Elruin's hold. "Now, you figure out what you're going to do while I'm no longer in spying distance, then come tell me something full of half truths and complete lies. Have Scratch make them up. Or better yet, tell me the truth while convincing me it's a lie. That way when I find a way to escape, I won't be able to reveal anything important."

"I promise everything I tell you will be true." It was fascinating, watching how the tangled mess of a mind control spell was responding to the idea of being intentionally lied to. "Especially the lies." The energy flashed, fluctuated, and drew upon Cali's mind to right itself. It could be broken, if one was to bombard it with enough nonsensical contradictions. She felt confident Cali wouldn't survive, however, and Elruin already knew she could break the spell by overloading it via direct magic, if she didn't mind killing Cali.

"That's the spirit." Cali put her hand on Lyra's shoulder. "Come on, Lyra, let's go see what sort of prison you dream up for me. Then I'm going to cuddle with you until this headache quits."

Once she was gone, Scratch poked his head out of the soil again. "Alright, what did we learn?"

"That nobles are horrid and I can understand where Claron's coming from," Erra muttered.

"Don't buy into that steaming pile of twice-regurgitated pig vomit, Priestess." The last thing Scratch wanted was to give Claron more supporters, let alone the one holding Lyra's leash. "Your entire species is full of violent, insane, selfish, stubborn monsters. Some rich, others poor, all terrible. You're also creative, adaptable, kind, loving, people who refuse to surrender to the inevitable. It's why you're still standing when so many others have been wiped out by monsters and war. Which is better than my people can claim. But enough about ancient history, let's talk about what we need to do now."

"We need to get help," Elruin stated. Solving problems here was no different than solving problems at school: break it down into simple, easy to accomplish steps, then put those steps together. "With the tunnels open, we can find people to run to Engewal, get warnings out to the remaining free cities."

"Sorry, that ain't happenin'," Scratch said. "Our choices are we go, or nobody goes. "Can't take Lyra, or everyone who stays dies. Can't take these people, or the monsters will rip the group apart. Can't get anyone else into the quarantine zone, 'cept maybe one with Lemia's teleport. Can't go straight to Engewal, either, I'm sure Claron and his men are prepared for that. Lifesight and someone like me to go scouting is the best hope we've got."

"And if we don't go, then we'll be waiting until Claron is strong enough to get through the nonviolence magic and kill Lyra." Elruin didn't want to go back into the wilderness, but the idea wasn't as bad as it would have been before. She was stronger than before, and far more knowledgeable of magic.

"Such is the nature of mortal life," Scratch said. "Tic tic tic, every tic a little closer to the final moment. The question is not if or when the end comes, but whether you'll accomplish anything of value while waiting."

Erra considered that bit of bleak wisdom. "How are you so good at finding the most depressing ways to say the most uplifting sentiments?"

"Years of practice, Priestess, long years of pr- woah, wha-"

Suggested Listening

Four long, slender limbs emerged from the earth, each with hands that might be mistaken for human if they weren't the size of a man's torso, emerged from the soil, followed by the face of a misshapen boar. Another four set of limbs, each with another set of hands, followed moments after.

It may not have been the first to begin screaming, but it was loudest by far. A soul-rending, magical howl that dropped more than a handful of the men at the border to their knees, while those within the field retreated to the safety of the tree.

It lashed out, grasping for the three nearest the hole. For Scratch, it was a futile attack, and Elruin evaded in part from her speed enhancing sarite of choice. It was Erra who was captured in the grip of the monster, which then lifted her with greater ease than it should have been able to. Its jaws opened, an extra three sets of tusks revealed themselves from within its mouth, while yellow bile dripped from its mouth.

"Let her go!" Elruin shouted, while blasting the creature with repeated bolts of energy.

The beast recoiled backward, striking outward at the little girl who inflicted such unexpected pain. It thought that nothing could hurt it, not in the strange magic that allowed it to grasp prey without risk, then drag them somewhere else to consume. Dirt and sod kicked up. The stone bounced off her magic-hardened skin, but the dirt still blocked her vision. Not her lifesight, however, so she kept blasting while it kept retreating.

It stumbled back for the safety of the tunnel, away from these bizarre tiny monsters, but its strength gave out. Shallow painful gasps of breath became ever more pitiful until they ceased, the monster halfway into the passage that represented its survival.

Lyra caught Erra as she fell from the monster's grip, then set her down and flew back to Cali.

"I, but," Erra stared at Elruin, rather than the monster. "How did you kill that thing?"

"It wasn't that strong," Elruin said. In truth, it was a great deal stronger than the mork she'd had to fight. If she thought about it, the monster was stronger than anything other than those people who stopped her from saving Cali.

"I didn't mean that part." Erra dropped to her knees, unable to stand after her brush with death. Some people were equipped to deal with adrenaline, but Erra wasn't one of them. "How did you get past the peace field."

"I saw it attack you, but the magic of the field didn't stop it, so that means it wasn't really a living thing. That means it's okay for me to hurt it. I was surprised that they were vulnerable to Negation magic, but they seem to emulate life magic to move. It's advanced stuff, I wish I had time to study it more."

"I don't th-"

Scratch put his nonexistent hand over Erra's lips. "Hush."

"But-"

"We just discovered a loophole so dumb that I doubt anyone has ever thought to defend against it. Admittedly, not only do I know no way to exploit that loophole, I can't so much as try to think of one, but I'm going to state that in this case, ignorance is bliss. Specifically, her ignorance and our bliss." Scratch guessed the peace aura would not take well to Elruin realizing she killed something while inside it, even if he didn't know what it might do.

Elruin, meanwhile, was approaching the slain thing. Whatever it was looked flesh and blood, complete with the flicker-hum of fresh born sarite. It felt strong- not quite as strong as the necromantic sarite she still kept hidden, but strong nonetheless.

She took her stiletto and pierced through the creature's eye, maintaining her death aura the entire time. Flesh crackled and burned away, blood dried to dust, and she got through without ruining what little clothing she managed to put together while trapped here. She extracted the stone, which thrummed against her energies. This shard would go well with her collection.

"Maybe you should go tell Lemia we're leaving the city. I'd like my training clothes." Elruin didn't want to ruin her expensive outfit, but if there were more monsters, she needed clothes that wouldn't melt when she used too much magic. "I have to stay here and guard against more of these constructs, in case they hurt someone who can't fight back. Then you'll need to close this passage down. Oh, and if you've got some spare flasks for water, I'd like to ask for some."

"Sounds like a plan," Scratch agreed. "And, hey, think if we find another of those things down there, that I can take it for a ride?"

Elruin gave Scratch an odd look "You can control constructs?"

"Uh, sure, let's say that for the purposes of this conversation, I can control these constructs, but not while inside this bubble. I can't guarantee it'll work on others." Scratch dipped down into the soil, so as to avoid ruining a good thing by running his mouth. He couldn't remember the last time he found a necromancer with Elruin's potential, and now he was set on the most perilous part of the journey.

How he influenced her over the next few months would shape the future of this empire and beyond.


=====

This chapter contains a direct reference to what's probably the best scene in all of Star Trek history.

Scratch is... many things... but damn is he a treat to write!

Also... it isn't just our world's software that some stupid bugs and exploits. But to be fair, the creators didn't envision giant freaky hand-monsters using the bubble like their own personal fast food joint.

In the game, this particular gimmick with this monster will not be so funny. These things (called Snatchers) can and will abduct party members, compelling you to chase them down. If they get away, the character in question is forced into a solo battle for survival. Depending on choices (and thus companions) up to this point, they can be extremely one-sided battles that result in some frustrating game overs.

Erra's the 'tutorial' captive, because if she's kidnapped, it's Lyra Interrupt. Dice favored Elruin this time.

 

Suggested Listening

Two more hand-monsters crawled up the tunnel while Elruin guarded, but both retreated the moment they realized Elruin could zap them. She was a little annoyed that she couldn't destroy them as well, knowing that soon she would be traveling these tunnels seeking a passage to the outside. Besides, this was the first earth sarite she'd ever discovered, and she wanted more in case the others were better.

Meanwhile, she worked on storing as much necromantic energy from the plug as she could within the water she was given. It wouldn't last long, perhaps three days, before the energies broke down and collapsed. Until then, it was a strong source of spare energy to convert into magic.

Scratch returned, not long after the second construct had been driven off. "Turns out, Lemia's been busy." He emerged from the ground, not far from the dead monster. It twitched, reacting to his animating taint. "Oh, hey, you've been busy, too."

"We need all the help we can get." Elruin sang her message, in order to keep the undeath creeping through their bones suppressed as it was in Scratch. She lacked the ghost's skill with the process, but so long as an exorcist didn't come near the bodies, she could hide their taint. It required a great deal of concentration, however, and would be useless once they were on the move.

"I suppose I should be offended that you're using pieces of me to build your own private army," Scratch said. "You seem to have it under control for now, but don't get too ambitious, or you'll lose your grip on them. It's an embarrassing way to lose a partner."

It was true, the biggest danger of controlling the undead that Elruin could see was if she tried to control too many and lost her grip upon them. Scratch was loyal for his own reasons, but his nonsapient 'children' were nothing more than killing machines held on a tight leash. All on the same leash, at that. She was nearing her limits, and one slip meant they would all run wild. "I promise I'll be careful. You can control of the hand dolly when we're in the tunnels, so I don't have to."

"Heh, I remember being told I was all hand back when I had a pulse. She wasn't being this literal." Scratch sank into the comfortable new corpse, getting a feel for its no longer living form. He'd be here for a few minutes. "Now that that's covered, I'm gonna need you to sing. To be specific, your college girlfriend needs you to sing, to establish resonance. She'll handle the teleportation half."

"I understand." Elruin began to sing, bracing herself for the power drain that would be caused by Lemia tapping into her power for this spell that she expected to be expensive. All scholars agreed that teleportation spells were rare, expensive, and difficult. Near the barricade, half a mile away,

Moments later a swell of magical song began near Elruin, an echo of her own as well as Lemia's motion-driven Revelation. Elruin sang to it, seeking to amplify the magic until the pattern completed itself.

Unlike with the hand-monster's magical cry, her own song had a limited range that would not reach the end of edge of the barricade. Perhaps some of them had magically enhanced senses which could extend their view to the center of the safety area, but identifying a complex, delicate, and specific spell from this distance was the sort of power attributed to gods, not mortals.

Suggested Listening

Black energy danced across the ground, then dissipated, leaving behind a wooden crate with a woman sitting on it. "Lemia?"

Lemia coughed, curled up, and fell off the box. "I think I'm gonna be sick." She gagged, but held back the worst of it. "No wonder nobody uses that thing."

"What are you doing here?" Elruin knelt down next to Lemia, examining her with her lifesight. The damage was minor, but also universal, extending to every part of her body. Painful, but nothing a few minutes around Lyra wouldn't fix.

"Getting out of this place before it burns to the ground." Lemia gave up and remained sitting.

"Is it that bad?" Elruin looked at Scratch, wondering if he'd left an important detail out of his reports.

"What she means is before they burn her to the ground." Scratch remained seated inside the monster, in case Elruin lost control.

"Not yet," Lemia admitted. "But I can see the writing on the walls. A couple old friends have vanished, along with a dozen more acquaintances. All the first ones to jump into Claron's loving embrace, move into the mansions, or otherwise take advantage of this new situation."

"In short, you're afraid of your classmates going after you."

"I'm not popular, never was," Lemia said. "Poor girl with a reputation. How long it'll be before someone decides I'm the next who needs to vanish? A month, two if I'm lucky?"

"Or you're a spy, and we're all dead the moment we step out of the protection field," Scratch muttered. "You lied to me, said you'd teleport equipment.

"If I was helping Claron, I'd have just told him something like you is out there." Lemia had given herself enough time to recover, so she stood while holding Elruin's shoulders. "Ell, do you have any idea how dangerous working with the undead is?"

"But-" Elruin's eyes widened. "How did you know?"

"She didn't, until this moment," Scratch said. "I'm gonna guess you sampled my magic, found the Negation magic, then dug deeper to discover there's nothing else. Thought I was a necromantic construct, maybe, then realized that is exactly what I am, in the most literal sense. Women like you are far too clever for their own good."

Lemia took the backhanded compliment for what it was worth. "There were a few other hints, like how careful you were to scrub your tracks. No construct could do that. What I want to know is how you knew I was sampling you. I'm the only person to have a technique like that."

"You're not as unique as you imagine, Infiltrator," Scratch answered. "Once upon a time entire schools were dedicated to training people like you. Some of them reshaped the world, for better and worse. But those are longer stories than I have time to tell today. Make you a deal, come with us and I'll tell you all I know about the lost techniques of your predecessors."

"Over a long period of time while calling me a spy?"

"That's the offer," Scratch said. "A slow trickle of secret knowledge that will prove more valuable than anything Claron could bribe you with."

"You're bribing me to not do something I was not planning to do in the first place? I'm going to hold you to that deal, Sucker."

Scratch laughed. "Oh, you are going to be the most precious little morsel I've had in generations. I'll never trust you, but nobody sane would trust those who'd make deals with the undead."

"And I say the same of those who'd make deals with the living," Lemia shot back. "Adorable necromancer children notwithstanding, of course. Speaking of, I brought this with." She reached into the crate.

"Mister Squishybones!" Elruin grabbed the stuffed toy the moment it was removed from the collection of supplies. She'd missed the horse doll during her her imprisonment here. "Thank you so much!"

"I've got your violin, too," she said. "And dried food, backpacks, waterskins, some dyes that we can use to change our hair and skin colors, some changes of clothing, a tent, some blankets, and even a sarite that's made for purifying water. I rescued it from the potion bin a few months back."

"By 'rescued' she means 'stole'," Scratch said. "That's a compliment, in case you were wondering."

Lemia put a hand over her chest. "How dare you besmirch my honor, you toad! I would never steal this cheap junk." Then she pulled a well made arming sword from the bottom of the crate. Its magesteel blade and gold trim spoke of opulence over function. "This, I stole. Had my eye on it from the first day I met the Dean of Admissions. Suffice it to say I consider this fair compensation on a debt he owes me, a sentiment he'll disagree with after he wakes up. I know a little about how to wield a sword, and this is the best I've ever got my hands on."

"Color me impressed." Scratch opted to skip all the obvious comments, on the basis that they were too easy. "What's it do?"

"Stabs people." Lemia smirked at the ghost. "It's got minor illusions designed to make the user look better, but truth is it's just an expensive decoration made to sit on a wall. And did I mention it's expensive? Even if the fence cheats me, I'll be able to buy a utilitarian sword that's way better with cash to spare for some decent armor."

Elruin was happy to watch her friends get along so well. "Please, get everything ready, I need to talk to Cali before we go."

"I guess trying to carry this crate around would be a pain," Lemia admitted. "I'll make sure the backpacks are ready when you get back, but we'll have to work together to carry the tent."

Scratch bid the freakish limbs of the corpse he hid in to move. "I got that covered."

Lemia opted to skip all the obvious comments, on the basis that they were too easy.

Some half an hour later, Lemia and Scratch were packed up, when she noticed something at the other side of the pillar. "That's when Kite realized it was a dog the whole- hey, is that Elruin? Who's she with, and what's she doing with a bucket of whatever that stuff is?"

"Eh?" Scratch looked the direction Lemia pointed out. "Oh! Merat na! Stop them!"

"What?"

"No time! Run! Explain later!"

Suggested Listening

Elruin, along with Cali and Lyra, were almost at the barricade on the other side of the camp, far beyond the distance Lemia could cross in time to make a difference. Erra stood further back, watching with concern as the trio carried out their plan.

Elruin began to sing as her group approached the wall, darkness roiling from her magic to blanket the area. Lyra sniffed at the inky magic, swatted it away from her, but didn't retaliate beyond that. The swelling necromantic magics were cast outward, meant for distraction and confusion instead of causing harm. Harm Elruin could not attempt within the field.

They reached the very edge, with Lyra taking position in front of them, as if daring the guards to attack. They did not, for they were given specific instructions not to antagonize the dryad.

On the edge of the field, Elruin set her bucket of magically charged water on the ground, then cupped Cali's trembling hands in her own. "You can change your mind, if you want."

"I know." Calenda smiled to hide her fear. "You said it won't hurt?"

"Neither of us will feel a thing," Elruin said.

"Then I can't ask for anything better." Cali leaned over, picked the bucket up and lifted it over her head, then took the final step outside the magical defense against violence.

"I choose death on my feet!" She screamed at the crowd as she slammed the full bucket into the crowd. A black storm of raw, unfocused, death magic ballooned from their position, then was guided outward like a wave by Elruin's magic. A song interrupted for a moment when Elruin caught her collapsing body.

The full passage was 'To die on your feet is better than to live on your knees.', and it was perhaps Calenda's favorite line of any holy text. The reason she emphasized her devotion of Ecross above all other gods. As last words went, they were good ones. At least they were better than the cries of confusion and terror of the twelve she took with her.


=====

... That got dark fast...

Lemia can be picked up on other paths. She has no particular loyalties to either side of this conflict, and will do what she can to further her own safety and future success. She'll actively seek Elruin out during the Ghosts side of the Occupation of Arila path (spoiler: Scratch doesn't trust her then, either). It starts a good portion of that story's sidequest, with Elruin serving as an investigative enforcer, seeking out those responsible for the vanishings.

Voice of the Dead sees a lot of use on that path.

The "Behind Enemy Lines" route of THIS path (splitting off at the invasion, if Elruin chooses to hide instead of fight) would see a lot of the same NPCs involved, but with Elruin assisting La Resistance. Lemia does get dragged into that mess, either way.

I wanted this game made of replay value.

 

"Stop! Stop right now!" A voice cut through the song, the voice of an angry, hateful creature wounded by life and poisoned by death. The song continued in spite of the insistence.

Suggested Listening

The young redhead stood combat ready, facing down her much older and larger opponent. An opponent who was unconcerned while she was soaked in the sweat of her exertion. She ducked under a kick, stepped far enough back to avoid the other, and even managed to block a punch. She was not prepared when the punch turned to a grip on her forearm.

She hit the ground before her brain realized her elbow was dislocated. She grit her teeth, knowing full well that screaming would be met with worse scorn and more violence, but the tears welled up in her eyes nonetheless. The pain relented with a burst of soothing, healing energy.

"Again!" Her mother shouted at her.

With fatigue cleared by magic, she forced herself to stand, but the mental exhaustion was getting to her. She only blocked a single punch, before the next came under her guard and caught her in the solar plexus. She dropped, gasping and unable to breathe.

She heard her mother walking away. "At this rate, you'll never be good enough. Clean yourself up, we have a visit with Duchess Esmera this afternoon."

The girl tried to shout at her mother, to scream that she'd surpassed her older siblings, and how unfair it was to expect a child to fight an adult. An argument that would be met with more scorn, asking her if she'd make the same complaints when facing a Chimera or Dragon. All she accomplished was gasping and crying on the cold ground.

"You don't understand! You'll ruin everything!" The song marched on, ever changing, adapting to what was needed as it was needed.

Suggested Listening

"I think the undead are powered by resentment," Elruin said.

"Resentment?" She hated to admit it, but her knowledge of theology and thaumaturgy were both limited. Given the pettiness she saw between factions of scholars, priests, and nobles, the fact that they all greed without hesitation that the undead could not be allowed to persist was proof enough of the necessity of destroying them.

"Or something like it," Elruin said. "Life is fueled by creation, by emotion. Death is fueled by negation, the loss of all emotion, death brings peace. Undeath is something between. Negation dimmed their emotions upon death, but couldn't destroy them. They persist by stoking what passion they still have."

"How does Scratch fit into that theory?" The ghost's nature called much of her beliefs into question.

"Scratch is the same, but he... resents his own resentment, if that makes sense." Elruin frowned, considering her explanation. Then she remembered one of Kasa's books that she borrowed. "It's like being in love, backwards."

Cali smiled at the little girl sitting across from her. "What do you know about being in love? Whose legs do I have to threaten to break?"

Elruin didn't answer, because there was nothing to answer with. She didn't know if she experienced love or resentment as others did. "It's possible to love someone who's terrible, and bad, and does awful things. But it's still love, even if you hate it."

Cali's smile vanished. That girl cut too deep, sometimes, yet never realized it. "That's what you think the undead are?"

"A dark reflection of the living," Elruin said. "We hope for the future, they hate the past. We create, they consume. We seek safety for ourselves and others, they seek destruction of the same. We have love, they have resentment. Scratch knows that about himself, and hates it, that's what gives him control of his nature."

"I made an oath," a soft voice answered. The voice of merciful death. "I will fulfill it."

Suggested Listening

"I don't know what they're talking about, you're a great fighter." A quick tug on her arm brought Cali to her feet, face to face with the somewhat taller green haired girl. "You got a hit on me. Half my instructors can't accomplish that anymore."

"Maybe you should fight my mother," Cali muttered. She rubbed her knuckles, where she hit Juna's chest and might have broken her own hand.

"That third-tier socialite? Sure, and after I get done with her, maybe I'd fight something with a bit less fragile, like a sparrow's egg." Juna stopped for a moment. "Sorry, I know she's your mother, but you didn't get your strength from her side of the bloodline."

"I hit you, but I still haven't touched her." She bit her tongue on arguing further. She wasn't sure how to stand up to the older, stronger, more confident, more important, and more confident girl. Besides, it was nice hearing someone talk about her mother this way.

"Because your'e fighting her on her terms, instead of making her fight you on yours. You're a water mage. The whole strength of your aspect is overwhelming a target with unpredictable forceful attacks, which is why you do better fooling around with me than you do fighting seriously against her."

Some part of her still suspected Juna was lying to make her feel better. "Easier said than done."

"I'll show you everything I know about getting kicked around by someone who can hit you three times before you know where the blows are coming from."

The song remained, the memories changed.

Cold, unforgiving metal held Calenda. She'd forgotten how uncomfortable metal could be, thanks to her natural toughness. "For the last time, I refuse to marry you! I don't care what threats you try. I promise, my mother did worse than you would be able to stomach!" She hoped she was telling the truth, but knew she was lying.

"I'm trying to save your life, Calenda!" Lord Garit's face still bore the marks of bruises from his clash with Lord Claron. Three of his teeth, by Calenda's count, were now missing. Once he got access to a healer that would all be undone, but for now he looked much less pretty than usual. "I know you have your problems with how Juna and I run... ran... the city, but I thought we were friends. I thought I'd earned some level of respect."

Calenda had to admit, she liked him a little better this way. Hurt, frustrated, angry, it reminded her of their childhood together. If he acted like that more often, maybe she'd find the idea of marrying him to be less intolerable. "I surrendered with everyone else, why am I singled out?"

"That Oathbond you hid from us, that's why." Garit said. "And because of your connection to Elruin."

"Leave her out of this!" Cali strained against the metal, absurd as the thought was that she'd be a threat to Garit even with his current wounds.

"I wish I could." Garit sounded sincere, but Calenda had seen him fake a lot of things before. "King Claron demands the girl be brought to him, to be sacrificed to Lord Enge at the mouth of the Holy Caldera. He intends to lead the ceremony himself."

"But that's insane! Enge doesn't demand sacrifices! And if he did, it'd be through the church, not some lunatic!"

"All I know is it's impossible to learn what Enge desires. The prayers are being ignored. Everything is in chaos. But I'm here to help you, and to help her if at all possible."

"Says the traitor."

"Says the man willing to sacrifice everything, even his own dignity, to protect his people!" Garit paused for a moment, to collect himself. "No, I won't let you bait me into another argument. I am no longer the child you remember. I was able to convince King Claron to let you live, if you marry me. The marriage oaths will be used to enhance and rework your current Oathbond. Then King Claron will use me to make you extract Elruin from her current position."

"On one hand, torture and death, on the other hand betraying the only member of my family I like even if she is adopted, then serving as an incubator for your spawn? Seems like an easy decision to me. Go choke to death on Claron's cock."

"You think I want you so bad that I'd rape you? Sorry, Calenda, I've got more self respect than that. You have my oath that I will never touch you unless you ask me to. And then beg my forgiveness for these insults."

Calenda hesitated for a moment. In her attempts to upset Garit, she let herself be blinded. "You have a different plan, don't you?"

"I need you to get Elruin out of the city," he said. "Preferably alive and not in King Claron's hands. Pull that off, without anyone realizing it was my goal all along, and I'll consider saving your life to be fair compensation."

Cali's eyes narrowed. "What's your angle."

"Same angle it's always been: to protect my people." Garit shook his head. "You know this. You've always known it. For reasons nobody's been able to explain, scrying magic has been disrupted throughout the kingdom, perhaps the entire empire. We thought it was something to do with the Ghosts of Sorvel, but now I'm not so certain. They're as blind as we are."

"Which means if Claron's as obsessed with Elruin as he seems..." It galled her to admit it, but Garit was a smart man. If only he wasn't such a cold, manipulative bastard.

"He is, he's not a good enough liar to fake it," Garit insisted. "But I won't tell you any more of my plans, for obvious reasons."

"Or," Cali added. "You're saying all this to trick me into luring Elruin into an ambush."

"I can't prove otherwise, and wouldn't if I could. You'll just have to be better than my hypothetical ambush plot, won't you?"

The tone softened, pulled at another string of thought, another fragment of self.

Suggested Listening

"You're going to ask me to die, aren't you?" Calenda stared up at the ceiling. "Then take it the next step beyond, into something I've spent my entire life hating."

"It's the one way I know to break away the chains around you." Elruin squeezed Mister Squishybones, reminding herself of all the kindness Cali had shown her over the last few months. A kindness which she would defy death itself in order to return. "To end your suffering, and return your freedom."

"Sounds like something a priestess of Yeris would say." Something of a 'sister' deity to Ecross, Calenda knew the basic tenants of the borderline suicide cult. "If you were offering me a way to die, it would even make sense. Instead you're trying to bring me back as a broken half-person like Scratch. How is that better than slavery?"

"It doesn't need to be half," Elruin insisted. "I've been studying how the undead work. I was hoping I could convince people to let me keep my dollies. I know now that nobody will ever allow me to, but I can chain your mind to your body, as long as I do it before you die. Then, you'll be in control of yourself when you come back. It's just like how resurrection spells work, but without the healing magic."

"If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it."

"It won't work on everyone," Elruin admitted. "It takes strong will, anger, resentment. In that, it's no different than 'natural' undead, but I can accelerate and amplify the process. And it does mean you'll need to stick close to me, the way Scratch does. The taint can't be cleansed for the same reason you can't cleanse life from a body without killing it. But I'll be able to suppress it. You'll remain you for as long as I live, longer if we can find another necromancer to pass off responsibility to in the future."

The twinge of compulsion pushed her forward. "And... will this improve the chances of convincing you to meet Enge directly?" She'd given up on the possibility of Elruin willingly sacrificing herself.

"I refuse to answer that," Elruin said. "If you don't know whether it will help or hurt, then you're free to make your own choice, rather than being forced into it by the compulsion of the magic. And, once that compulsion is broken, I promise to exorcise you if you prefer death to undeath. As soon as we get outside of the peace aura, because I can't hurt you here no matter what I try."

"If you used the compulsion against me, I would have refused," Cali said. "But I will hold you to the oath of letting me die when I want. Or I'll find a way to kill you, then myself."

"Scratch can break my control whenever he wants," Elruin said. "You'll be able to do the same."

Suggested Listening

Resentment. Anger. Hatred of the past. These are the things which allow the dead to defy death. Focus on the hate. Focus on the song.

"Defend yourself!" Her mother shouted.

Calenda responded as normal, taking a stance and putting her arms up for the onslaught her mother would deliver. A kick, ducked under, another she ducked forward, putting herself closer to her mother's reach.

Mother jabbed, in a somewhat off position due to being too close to her opponent for proper use of reach and power. After dealing with Juna's aggressive, powerful style, she could see why her friend had such disrespect for the older forge mage's talents.

Driven by knowing she landed fair hits on Juna, she pressed her position and sacrificed defense for offense. A single blow to the skull was nothing compared to the beating she received from fighting defensively, and it put her in range to punch forward into her mother's stomach. Another punch, and a third. Flashes of energy screamed that she was inflicting real blows against a foe unprepared for such a self-destructive strategy.

She felt the flow of magic clashing against magic, then her eyes widened. She now understood the sensation of magic flowing over her skin. More, she understood what those sensations meant.

Mother drew together her power, a tornado of fire began forming to drive Cali's assault back.

High on the thrill of victory after years of struggle, Calenda kept pressing her advantage, drew her own magic together, and struck the epicenter of flowing magic, ripping it apart with her fingers.

A ball of fire, pain, and screams erupted around them, burning away their skin and flesh. A week later, she would awaken to learn she was the only survivor of her overconfidence. True, her mother was brought back later at significant expense to the family, but it would mark the last time they ever spoke to one another.

Calenda's eyes snapped open, burning with tears she could no longer shed.

"Cali!" Elruin held her, crying enough for the both of them. "I'm so sorry, I never knew!"

Her new muscles moved well, perhaps better than her old. Her new skin could feel the warmth of Elruin's touch, and she could still smell the sour scent that came from not having access to bathing water. It was less intense than it might have been for someone else, perhaps the girl's age and death magic kept her aroma to a minimum. All her senses were different, better, and some part of her was eager to learn what that meant in the future.

"That's fine, Ell," she put her arm around the girl's back. "I never told anyone." Later she would ask what this building was that they were in, and who the girl watching from the corner was, but for now it was nice to be alive again, or some twisted corruption of the concept. A small price to pay for her freedom.


=====

More info about Calenda's past. One of the things about improving resonance between people is it tends to come with delving deep into their respective emotional issues. Believe it or not, a good chunk of it was inspired by Septerra Core- a game that was not all that good, but had many, many really great ideas... some of which, I suspect Ar Tonelico also took inspiration from.

Also some real insight into what it is that makes Elruin a legitimate rarity instead of merely unusual in the setting.

I commissioned cover art for my story, from an amazing talented artist who turned this disaster into something amazing. It either is or will soon be on the front page of all places I'm putting this story.

So, yeah, check her stuff out. Commission art. Shower her with the praise she so rightly deserves.

 

Suggested Listening

Calenda brushed her hand over the stained stone pillar, taking countless years of dust and dirt with her. Her sense of touch was sharper as well, or perhaps it was the same and the difference was a lack of distractions. Without the throb of a heartbeat in her ears, or the pressure of blood flowing through her veins, the whole world felt and sounded different. "What is this place?"

"A better question is: how do we keep the things down here from eating all of you?" Scratch said. With his current eight-limbed monster body, he was having quite the time scaling the ceiling. It wasn't quite the same mobility as not having a body to slow him down, but it was something. "Or, specifically, how do you keep them from eating Elruin?"

"I can protect us, they don't like fighting."

"One of them, in a tight corridor, doesn't like fighting." Scratch moved three of his borrowed hands to display to the girls. "These are the claws of a predator, the eyes of a predator, and the jaws of a predator. Out in the open, they'll overwhelm you. Together, we might be able to fight three at a time, but there's hundreds of these things in this place."

"Here, these can help," Elruin opened her sack of sarite crystals. "Lemia, this one will help protect you." She handed her nature shard to the girl, who could benefit from its boosting of strength and endurance. "Cali, have this shard. It shouldn't hurt you, since you're not alive."

"That's sweet of you, Ell, but..." Elruin pressed the crystal into Calenda's hands. "... I can use sarite?" She looked at the black crystal, oozing darkness and death between her fingers. "How can I use sarite? That's supposed to be impossible for the undead."

"You're not like the dollies," Elruin said. "I used my magic to shield you from the damage caused by death, sort of how Scratch shields his energy from being detected. You should even retain use of your magic. The tricky part is going to be finding ways to keep you healthy, since you can no longer recover from injury or exhaustion. The vampire shard should help." It was as good a description of the shard's power as anything she could imagine. "I tried to make sure you still liked hugs, too. You do, right?"

Cali smiled at her strange little necromancer. "From you? Anytime. Scratch tries it, and I'm going straight to the nearest exorcist now that I'm no longer bound by his accursed oathbinding magic." The threat was empty, the sentiment was not.

Lemia couldn't help but take interest in the theory. "Then you can just, what, transform anyone you want? That can't be right, if immortality was that easy everyone would have it."

"No, it has to be someone like Cali, who could come back on her own." Elruin kept silent about the nature of person it required to defy death, knowing Cali probably didn't want her to tell anyone those secrets. It did beg the question of what cruel history drove Scratch to remain. "Not everyone can do that. All I did was manipulate the process to stop it from driving her insane. And I have to stay connected to her, same as Scratch, to keep them protected in the long run."

"And I'm betting it won't last long past the death of the necromancer we're bonded to," Cali finished. "Forbidden magic requiring a rare bloodline that at best adds another few decades to your life and turns everyone against you? Wouldn't surprise me if some people use it, but it could never be common."

"Maybe we can find someone to take over for me, some day." Elruin would have to ask Scratch how rare people like her were, because she was convinced most necromancers couldn't do what she was doing. Life energy, including that which kept her alive, could not synchronize with death energy like her, same as air could not synchronize with earth, or fire with water. They should cancel, not merge, and the attempt should have killed her. "But first, I have another shard for you. It may not be as strong as your old shards, but it will help you see in the dark."

Now that she knew she could, Cali accepted the shard and dipped into the familiar energies of earth magic. It was a good shard, too, with power to bolster her strength and it could have boosted her toughness, too, if her own defensive power wasn't greater than the shard's. Her new sense echoed out through the caverns, the buried maze that was once a thriving metropolis.

"Scratch, I need you to go through that tunnel." Calenda still hadn't decided what she thought of her new lease on un-life, but she was a Scout, regardless of what some pompous conquerer with delusions of godhood did to her title, and she had a mission. "You'll find one of those hand monsters, it's alone. Carry this," she carved a slab of flesh from the side of the mork. It was dead, it didn't need tissue. "Try to look wounded, retreat back this way when it pursues you."

"You know what these things are?" Lemia asked.

"I've heard a few stories," Cali answered. "Nothing to suggest they were anywhere near this common, however. They're solitary hunters, cannibals. It'll go for Scratch, then we'll set up an ambush. If we pick them off one at a time, we can kill a path to the outside. And if it destroys your body, you can jump to the next one."

"First of all, Sis, I don't work for you. I work for Elruin." Scratch took the time to peek out of his host body. "Second, and this is important, I have limits. Jumping bodies is hard, and all that necromantic residue left behind needs cleaning, which takes time we don't have and power Elruin can't afford to spend. Oh, right, and she'll be singing out here with all these things that hunt by sense of hearing. Or do we abandon tainted flesh here, with monsters you just said are cannibals?"

Calenda adapted to the new information in a metaphorical eyeblink. "Fine, plan remains the same but we're less cavalier about it. I'll hide here, beneath this overhang. You can stick the mork in that corner, it should blend in. We have no heartbeat, I don't think they'll take notice of us except as carrion. Ell, you and Lemia stay back, near where the path branches again. The two of you can hide behind Scratch, let the dead do the fighting while you do the magic."

"I can see why Ell wanted to bring you with so bad," Lemia said. "Don't worry, I'll stay out of your way."

The plan worked well, with the limping and 'wounded' grabber-corpse moving through the tunnel path. Soon, the other approached, at first curious; the troupe could not know, but dragging meat near another's nest was courtship behavior for this species. It never would have worked out, however, since Scratch's host was in too sickly a condition to draw attraction from a mate. In addition, both of them were female.

A rival near her nest was unacceptable. A wounded rival with food near her nest was an opportunity. The grabber gave chase the moment her new prey began to run, never stopping to question all the things wrong with this scenario. For all its power, it resembled a crocodile in intelligence and temperament.

She was surprised when two live-foods stood in the tunnel. She had never seen such a bounty in one place before. She was confused when the rival stopped, twisting herself in the cavern to a combat position. She was startled the two dead-foods she smelled moved behind her. She was afraid and enraged when the larger dead-food bit her leg as if she was a food-thing.

She kicked out, gripped the dead-food by its throat as was instinct. The spine snapped, but the jaw remained clenched as strong as ever. She didn't understand, for this had always stopped food from struggling before.

The living food hummed, then it felt pain and numbness. The other live-food did the same. Then the rival attacked, instead of trying to claim a food and run away. Why did the rival help the food? This was her last thought before the final food jumped on her back, then she knew nothing but pain, fear, and darkness before the pain vanished, along with everything else.

"That was-" Lemia shouted, before stopping herself. "Sorry, that was incredible!" She did her best shout while whispering. "I was terrified, but the way you handled yourselves, and it dropped so easy I can't believe I was ever afraid..." She braced herself against the wall. "Sorry, dizzy spell. Too much excitement."

"That and you were burning through mana fast," Cali said. "You need to pace yourself better."

Lemia looked down. "Sorry."

"Don't be, you did just fine." Tear them down, then build them back up again. She'd had to do that for enough women over the years, though usually in training rather than the field. "But don't expect it to go like this often. These are nothing more than animals. Tough animals, but animals. Intelligent monsters are the really scary ones. Hey, Scratch, I need to borrow your claws. Cut right here."

"Back when I was alive, I would have found you absurdly attractive." Scratch used his talons to carve a gash in the dead monster. "I was a moron back then."

Cali kept her attention on Lemia. "But, this is a learning experience for me, too." She shoved her hand into the guts of the monster, seeking out the crystalized magic within. "First time I've ever been in a fight where I could ignore all the friendly fire. It's tough on the front line when you have to coordinate with your blasters to keep them from hitting you."

Elruin dipped her fingers in the small bucket of necromantic water she had with her, to siphon off just a little energy. Her energy had to supply both her spells and Lemia's imitation of her spells, so she made certain she was capped at all times.

They worked their way deeper into the cavern, in order to escape from it somewhere far away from Arila, which sat above them. Three more monsters slain, three more sarite crystals acquired, but they seemed no closer to an escape.

Suggested Listening

"Gah!" She looked around at the others, realizing that once again she made too loud a noise when in a tunnel full of monsters that hunted by sound. "Sorry. I just. Look." She pointed to the building which was near them "It's a demon!" The creature was dead, mummified and broken in the street. It had the body of a horse to the neck, then that of a man above.

Elruin, as all children, knew tales of these horse-demons who would come in the night to take children away to torture for all eternity. She was never too frightened by the stories, for she always had walls to hide behind. Now, the body just made her lonesome for Mister Clackybones.

"It's a long-dead corpse," Calenda responded. "And not one like me. This is also a good place to rest for the night. The whole building's solid stone. Looks like it was a temple, back when these people used this city."

Lemia watched the body as they entered the building, as if expecting it to jump up at any moment. Inside, she looked around at the art, numerous statues, all of them demons like the one outside. Several other mummified demon corpses lined the stone floors, some smaller as if they were women, and others smaller still which must have been children, dead in the arms of the adults.

Above them were dark alcoves that might once have been windows to the sky once. Now they displayed only the rock and dirt between them and the surface.

Calenda saw it, too. "Hmm, maybe we could use this as a way to the surface? If the steeple tower was anything near as grandiose this interior, it might extend all the way up. Scratch, think you can go up there, see how far to the surface?"

"I'll think about it in the morning," Scratch said. "Right now, we don't want to be on the surface without our full strength, and our literal lifeline is at her limits."

It was true, Elruin had exhausted much of her magic on the trek through these winding tunnels that were once streets. "I don't think I can control both dollies while Scratch is searching. I need sleep."

Lemia held her hand up, increasing the glow of magic she'd been using to see in this cave darkness. "Is that the Ring of Enge?" A large circular band with three smaller circles near the top was the symbol of Enge's church, meant to represent the whole of the Engeval and the three volcanoes that made up his true heart.

"Looks like it," Cali said. "It even uses the the same colors. A large band of white, made of marble. Two bands of gray granite, and a single band of red sandstone when depicted in a statue. Silver, steel, and a ruby when worn."

"Why would demons have a temple to Enge? He drove them out, cast them into the sea." Lemia hesitated for a moment. "Or so the legends go."

Elruin looked at the bodies, then hummed a tune to them. It was ancient, lost to time, but echoes of the past remained in these long-dead corpses. Flashes of fire, cries of agony in a language she did not know. Flesh caught fire, lungs boiled, eyes melted, and those that survived would be suffocated by a poison so powerful that even those protected by magic fell. Here, in this temple, some few survivors hid behind the magic of the priests and prayed for a salvation that did not come. A single tear, the first drop of moisture in this building for centuries, fell from her cheek.

"They called him Ciron, before they all died."

"They were known as centaurs, long before Engeval became an empire," Scratch said. "Once, they ruled all of the plains to the north, this valley, and all the way to the jungle."

"So the demons I thought were myth turned out to be real monsters," Lemia moved to the corner of the room furthest from the corpses. "But that doesn't explain why they worshiped the same god we do."

"What else would they worship?" Scratch asked. "Centaurs found this valley before humans, but the being you call Enge has been here since before centaurs or humans ever existed on this world. They worshiped Ciron for the same reason you do."

"But the same symbols? The same color? Did Enge give an order that he have that particular symbol?"

"Not to my knowledge," Calenda answered. "We've never used any other symbol for Enge."

"Fine, if you children need a bedtime story that bad." Scratch moved his gangly corpse near the center of the room. "A long, long time ago in a kingdom right beneath your feet, the centaurs ruled. They lived as... the word is 'nomads', which means those who travel with their whole families, and don't settle down in any one place in their life. It's not something you see these days. Anyway, they settled this valley, trading with harpies and mer, who I believe are also extinct. They tried to build cities of their own, but you try working on ladders or weeding crops when your lower half is a horse. So they took slaves. Not your kind of slavery, real slavery."

"Real slavery?" Calenda thought their version was bad enough, she could only imagine what Scratch was speaking of if it got worse.

"Chattel slavery. The kind where the slaves aren't considered people," Scratch said. "Centaurs kidnapped children, force them to serve as labor their whole lives, forced them to breed to create more slaves. Tortured and mutilated the old to scare the young into working harder. Used them to... satisfy their baser desires, so to speak. Whatever stories you may have heard about your demons, I promise the real thing was worse than your legends."

"And then what happened?" Lemia asked.

"Couldn't say for certain." Scratch began walking his slave back to the entrance of the cathedral. "If I had to guess, they began losing numbers to the monsters, until they were weak enough that their former slaves could rise up and overthrow them. Then I imagine those people, your distant ancestors, began to erase all record of the centaurs. Gave credit for their buildings to the dwarves, or claimed it for themselves. Which is fair, they did most of the work."

"Then came the question of the god the centaurs worshiped. A god they would have to worship as well, if they wanted to remain in this nice, safe, valley. Don't ask me where they got the name 'Enge' from. The rest, you can probably figure out on your own. Then they all died horribly ever after, but not before firing out enough crotch-spawn to create everyone you know, the end. Now go to bed."

Elruin looked at the bodies, trying to imagine how the echoes she saw from her magic, and the dead mothers trying to shield their children, matched with Scratch's claims of torture and treating other people as nothing but animals. She fell asleep unable to find an answer.

=====

In many ways, the "scholar" path is objectively suboptimal (weaker combat stats and less power to work with)... but it is the path which unlocks build-a-minion fastest. Or second fastest, technically speaking.

In the game, there will be a "stealth" minigame at this point, where you attempt to guide Elruin and company out of the monster maze, due to the Grabbers being a pain in the behind to fight at this point, especially once they start wearing down the characters' magic supply. The earth shard of last chapter provides a reason for having a "3D map" of the terrain. Beyond just Elruin's lifesense.

The ambush/lure mechanics will be something of a reflection of the game "Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines" that I loved as a kid. My main problem was how dumb the AI in that game could be. Solution: make the enemy a creature that's not particularly intelligent.

I intend the game version to also involve Elruin using Voice of the Dead to pick up clues, secrets, and treasures from centaur corpses strewn about in the maze.


Speaking of minigames... I anticipate the mix-and-match sarite mechanics to see a lot of play, and exploitation for the optimizers. It'll be interesting to balance a system that relies almost exclusively on procedurally generated equipment that will be fair and challenging to a wide variety of gamer styles. Probably drive the speed-runners batty, however. But here's a peak under the mechanical hood for those of you not playing along over at DWW:

Spoiler: Sarite

Elruin capacity 0/7
Calenda capacity 2/8
Lemia capacity 0/3

(E) 1 Air: Movement+, Bolstered senses +, Agility +
(E) 1 Air: Evasion ++, Aim +
(L) 1 Mind: Alertness +, recovery +
(L) 1 Nature: Strength +, Durability ++
(L) 1 Water: immune to water poison or disease, can cleanse poison or disease from water

(E) 2 Shadow: Stealth +, Magic Hide ++
2 Air: Olfactory ++, Nightvision +, Air magic efficiency +

(E) 3 Air: Agility ++, Evasion +, Movement ++, Dust Storm 1
3 Lightning: Agility ++, Aim ++, Evasion +, Lighting Bolt 2

(C) 3 Ice: Vit - (curse, doesn't impact Elruin or the undead), Mana Drain - - (curse, does impact Elruin), Energy Vampirism Lvl 2, Agility ++, Stealth +, Strength ++, Mein +, Perc ++
(C) 3 Earth: Vit ++, Echolocation sense, Armor L2 (won't stack w/Ell or Cali who have Earth armor already), Str ++

 

Suggested Listening

Morning, such as it was in this cave, came with numerous aches for Elruin. She sat up, gave Mister Squishybones a hug for being such a good pillow, then set to work putting her bedroll back into the pack. She spotted Calenda, standing at the altar

"Oww," Lemia muttered, having woken up by Elruin moving. "I discovered the downside of a shard that lets you pull all-nighters without getting tired. Do it too long, and your body forgets how to sleep for real."

"Will you be okay?" Elruin got to her feet, still holding her doll. Nearby, the zombified mork also began to stir. She wrinkled her nose at the smell. Soon Scratch's doll would begin to rot as well.

"I'm fine, nothing a warm bath won't fix. Not that we'll be getting one of those any time soon." Lemia began packing up her supplies as well.

Elruin left Lemia to her work, and approached Cali. "Are you okay?"

"Huh?" Cali looked away from the temple. "Is it morning, already? At least I had too much on my mind to get bored."

"Maybe." Elruin didn't know what time of day it was, considering they were underground. "But we're awake, now. Are you feeling better?" She gave Cali a hug, noting the coolness of her skin. She was in better condition than the dollies, and Elruin would put lots of time and effort into making certain she remained that way. She didn't want her big sister to become nothing more than a skeleton.

"I'm fine, still getting used to." Cali used one hand to gesture across her whole body, the other to hold Elruin. "Everything. The good news is, I don't think I'll be asking you to exorcise me the moment we get to safety. The bad news is that means I'll have to grow accustomed to never sleeping, and healing myself through parasitism."

"The better news, Sis, is that you'll have plenty of acceptable targets," Scratch said from his minion. "Now that our mistress is awake, we should get moving. Speaking of, you can hold my ride while I'm scouting the surface, right?"

Elruin considered the strain, then decided she could maintain the monster. "I believe so." She sang to the corpse, unwrapping it from Scratch, so that now it belonged to her. "I've got it." She would have to consider whether it was smarter to keep Scratch as a ghost, or have him pilot dollies, in the future.

"What are you doing?" Calenda said. It took Elruin a moment to realize she was talking to Lemia. "Are you looting corpses in a church?"

Lemia was currently standing over one of the centaurs that Elruin guessed was once a woman, holding a long chain. "What? Not like they have any use for this stuff. Besides, have you seen the quality of this jewelry, and how different is to our designs? If I can get a decent outfit, I could claim I'm foreign royalty and people would believe it. Or if not royalty, then at least a traveling foreign merchant."

"That's not the problem!" Cali insisted. "This is a church of Enge, and his worshipers."

"Yeah, well, go tell that to the inquisitors," Lemia said. She moved on to another ashen, mummified body. "We've got two abominations and a girl that apparently Enge Itself has demanded sacrificed. Looting church corpses is the least objectionable thing we've done since yesterday. Then there's these slaver-demons. I'd be having a real crisis of faith right now if I cared about Enge or the church in the first place. As I see it, they and theirs have done nothing for me, so I owe them nothing."

Elruin found herself agreeing with Lemia. "Sorry, Cali, but I don't think Enge is on our side. And if he is, he'd want us to do whatever we could to succeed."

"Just... fine," Cali muttered. "If you need me, I'll be outside getting some fresh air." She stopped at the entrance to the church. "Leave the holy symbols behind. If not in the name of decency, then pragmatism. They look too much like ours, would attract the wrong sorts of attention."

Elruin watched Cali go.

"She'll be fine," Lemia said. "What matters right now is survival, and she knows that."

Elruin sighed, then began to sing, reaching out with her Voice of the Dead magic, she spoke to the echoes of what were once ghosts, or fragments of memories, or whatever it was that she was tapping into with her magic. "There's a cellar that way, it's where they kept donations."

"Think they've got any wine? If it's been down here the last thousand years or so, it'll have to be the best booze on the planet." Regardless of answer, Lemia was happier with the idea of taking directly from the coffers, than poking her gloves around in the ashen remains of these mummies."

Elruin let them to the side passage, then took point while allowing Lemia to generate light behind them. The passage was a sloped ramp, rather than stairs. A portion of that floor had a large, living tree root which stuck through it, then back into the ground. It felt magical, and familiar. "That explains why there are still corpses down here," she said more to herself than anything as she ducked under the root.

"I don't get it, what's a root have to do with anything?"

"It's one of Lyra's," she said. "When she created that giant tree, she had to take the material from somewhere. I'm sure there were pockets of caves down here before, but she's the one who turned it into a labyrinth of tunnels."

"If that's the case, I'd hate to see what happens next rainy season," Lemia said. "The whole countryside will be nothing more than sinkholes."

Elruin considered that possibility. "I don't know, I think Lyra's too smart for that."

"Either way, we'll be long gone by then." Lemia stopped, her eyes widening as she looked into the abandoned cellar. There were armfuls of coins that looked like they must have been stacked neat in the corner, but had fallen over in what must have been the same cataclysm that buried the city underground, and a tapestry that held shimmering threads of blue, green and gold.

"Is that a map?" Elruin asked. The shape of the empire maps matched, even the rivers were in the same place.

"If it is, it's the most magnificent map I've ever seen." Lemia stepped closer to the wall hanging. "Magical cleaning, magical repair, still working after all these centuries. I think this is the swamp, and these are the plains, and that means these brown dots would be cities, and these are roads. They had so many, even the Senol desert is covered in cities."

"They're like stars in the sky," Elruin agreed. "We have to take it with us."

"Yes, we do," Lemia agreed. "There's more historical knowledge here than in half the library's books combined. Look, if this is true, the Lenal Islands are bigger than Engeval, and there's even an end to the supposedly endless Senol desert." She was already starting to take the tapestry off the wall. "Even if you didn't have monsters and oceans in the way, it could take a year to walk from one end of this map to the other."

Elruin started helping Lemia lower and roll up the map, which was the bulk of their work. Without extra bags, they couldn't carry much more than some pocketfuls of gold coins, so they left behind the less valuable silver and billon. Without tools, it would be struggle enough to take the map up to the surface with them.

They returned to the top floor, the rug-sized map carried between them.

"We found a map of the whole world!" Elruin declared when she returned to the surface level. "We have to show it to the library."

"It's not the whole world," Lemia corrected. "But I wouldn't be surprised to learn it's at half of the world. I'm sure we can find a library somewhere to preserve it. Better than leaving it here to rot when the protective magic finally wears thin."

"I guess that's not too sacrilegious." Calenda uncrossed her arms. "If we can restore lost knowledge, I'm sure Enge will forgive us."

Scratch, too, had returned from his adventure before them. "So, we can get through here. It'll take a bit of work, and I'll need to take my puppet back for a few to do the digging. Gonna have to abandon the mork, though. No way to get it out unless we wanna spend another day wandering around down here looking for a bigger hole."

"Then we exorcise the mork and head up," Calenda said. "We're operating on a time limit before there's nowhere left to run from Claron. I, for one, don't want to spend the rest of Ell's life hiding in these tunnels. We will run out of food sooner rather than later."

Elruin didn't like the sound of that, either. "Alright, I'll exorcise the mork. Will the hand monster fit through the tunnel?"

"Yeah, these things are made for contorting their way through tight places." Scratch took his reclaimed puppet up into the church tower, and soon there was the sound of earth and stone collapsing to the floor, then down the stairs.

Suggested Listening

Soon they, sans one now-regular-dead mork, were pushing things into the tunnel for Scratch to pull to the surface. At the end, they climbed up the cramped tunnel with Calenda taking up the rear.

They were dirty, sweaty, and the sun was well into the sky before they found themselves on the surface. At least Elruin's training outfit was still in one piece, requiring only a thorough scrubbing to be presentable again.

"Now we need to determine where to go." Calenda used a combination of her sarite and natural magic to scale one of the trees. "We're west of Arila, which means a direct march to Engewal takes us right back into Claron's territory, so that's out. So's west, that takes us into the mountains the wrong way. We could go north, that takes us into Dwarven territory. There, we can hire messengers that won't be traced back to us. Problem is, it means days of marching in open wilderness, without any farmsteads to take refuge. Or south, where I'm most familiar, but also the places Claron's most likely to conquer next if he hasn't already."

"I'm guessing trying to go straight through to Engewal is a bad plan," Lemia said.

"It's... an option. The fastest option, but the one with the most risk. We'll have to kill people, some bandits, some soldiers who may be doing nothing more than their jobs, if we take that path. Also, the chance of running face first into Claron or his elite forces."

"Speaking of strong, did one of you do something to me?" Lemia looked at the rest of the group. "Climbing up that hole was more exercise than I've ever done in my life, but I don't feel that tired."

"Oh, that's an interesting one," Scratch said. "Let me ask a question: what do you think happens to life energy, when a monster or powerful mage dies?"

"Some of the energy becomes sarite, the rest dissipates into the environment, unless something stops it form doing so. Or so everything I've been taught claims, and all my magical training confirms. You're going to have to come up with a lot of evidence to convince me otherwise." Lemia watched the ghost, daring him to throw yet another of her once-held truths in to question.

"Don't worry, Spook, that part's all true." Scratch loved the smug satisfaction of messing with the woman. "But it's more complex than that. Some of that energy doesn't break down, it remains 'solid' for a time. It can become the spark that creates undeath, but it can also seek out new living hosts. The closest animal, usually that means whatever killed it. Those monsters you helped kill had a decent amount of power that's now yours."

"Mine?" Lemia couldn't deny that she felt far stronger than she had yesterday. "What about the rest of you?"

"Well, I get nothing, consequence of what I am," Scratch said. "Elruin picked up some, too, but at her strength, she'd need to kill a couple dozen of those things to notice the difference. You're weaker, so it's more obvious. That's why the wilderness grows ever more dangerous. Kill or be killed is all that nature knows, so as the beasts hunt each other, they gain strength, they breed, every cycle a little stronger than the last."

Calenda asked the next question. "Wait, how come I've never heard about any of this before?"

"Oh, I don't know, why wouldn't the rulers of the world want it known that all someone has to do to become powerful is slit their throats while they sleep? Why wouldn't the churches want to broadcast the knowledge that you can become a god, just by murdering a city or two? If any of them realized the truth, they'd never breathe it to another living soul. Besides, there's diminishing returns. After a certain point of power, you'd have to hunt things like Lyra and Claron to get any stronger. Doesn't save you from the reaper in the end, anyway. Life of war, godly power, then die of old age like everyone else."

"That makes more sense than I care to admit. But it doesn't change our immediate situation." Calenda looked to the east, in the general direction of Arila. "For now, we must find a way to warn Engewal and stop Claron."

=====

Yes, indeed, gaining stat ugrades by killing monsters is a canon phenomena in Midara.

Something tells me Cali was lying about getting fresh air. Probably the fact that they're in underground tunnels full of stale air. Yeah, that must be it.

I know almost nothing about alcohol, but I'm aware that the whole aging wine thing is more myth than reality (it's a little true, sometimes). Lemia, on the other hand, has even less clue than I do.

 

Suggested Listening


They took their time to redistribute their sarite, with Lemia trading out her lesser nature shard for a much more powerful nature element from one of the slain grabbers. She took a breath, adapting to the new senses and power granted. Minor scrapes and bruises vanished on her skin began to fade, as if days of healing passed in mere minutes. "I don't think I need to sleep at all, with these shards," she said.

While they were sorting through equipment, Elruin thought about the problems ahead. As much as she wanted a warm place to sleep, she didn't want to put more people in danger like they were when at her cousins' farm. "I think we go to the dwarves. It's safer than taking my dollies near people, and you can keep watch in the night."

"It's probably the safest route," Cali agreed. "If not for us, then for the rest of the empire."

The quartet set off, each taking advantage of their respective sensory magic while the grabber followed behind. It would have made an excellent scout with its speed and prowess, but now it was starting to look dead in addition to smelling it. Besides, even if it did encounter something, it wouldn't be able to communicate this fact to Elruin. So instead it took the role of the rear guard.

"Hey, we haven't talked much," Lemia said as she approached Cali. "I wanted to say sorry about earlier. The whole crisis of faith thing, I mean. I get it, I was where you are once, years ago."

"Since you have a pulse, I'm going to guess you're talking about something else." Calenda kept her eyes forward, surveying the landscape with her magic.

"I made a few, let's say, career choices when I was younger." Lemia, too, kept her eyes forward. These were bitter memories she was dredging up. "The churches were less than thrilled by my decision. Ecross and Enge, worst of all. Didn't stop the people who condemned me during the day to visit me during the night, coin in hand."

"I see." It wasn't quite the same, but the woman had been cast out of society, just as she had. "I misjudged you."

"No, you probably got me figured out," Lemia said. "I'm not a good person. Not 'Scratch' bad, but I prioritize what's good for me, first. At the same time, I'm not so far gone that I can't recognize love when I see it. That little girl back there adores you, and you love her, too. Enough to defy logic, self-interest, society, and Divine Law as we know it. I admit, I'm a little jealous."

"That so?" Cali smirked to prevent her deeper emotions from showing. "Well, I'm sure if you ask, she'd give you 'the treatment' and you can be just like me."

"Not that jealous." Lemia dropped the other subject; she'd made the point she wanted to make. "Maybe in a few years when things start to sag, but for now I'm content with what I've got. But, I know my life's not as safe as it once was. I think I'd rather cheat death Ell's way than with resurrection magic. I've heard stories, none of them good."

Cali thought back to Crela's fainting spells, emotional outbursts, and inability to eat red meat without getting ill even weeks after recovery. "Some have it worse than others, but I don't think anyone's ever walked away hours after revival." Crela wasn't even one of the worst examples; many turned around and killed themselves after being resurrected.

"I'll take your version, then," Lemia said. "But I wasn't just here to make casual conversation. We need to talk about disguises, especially your scent."

Cali gave an involuntary sniff, testing the air for anything that might come off her. "I don't smell bad, do I?"

"Better than I do, that's the problem."

"Ugh, I feel like a rookie." Given what they'd been doing the last couple days, Lemia and even Elruin were becoming a little unpleasant, while she smelled of dry dirt and the metallic scent of monster-blood spatters. It was a notable scent, but not a living scent.

"So I was thinking, time for some cosmetic changes to go with everything else." Lemia extracted a metal box from her pack. "And I've got everything we need right here. There was a time when I imagined working cosmetics, but the poor couldn't afford them and the rich didn't want me."

"What are you thinking?"

"Well, first, your hair. That red screams 'noble blood'." Lemia brushed her fingers through Cali's hair. "We can't afford that attention. Then there's your skin. You are too beautiful, better to have you look like someone who's less beautiful and is trying to look prettier, than to have someone who's got such natural beauty that she doesn't need tricks to look better."

"That's an awful lot of attention paid to what I look like." Cali smirked. "Am I going to have to put up with propositions for you, now?"

"Tried it, not my thing." Lemia pulled a vial of black ink from her pouch. "This should get you about the same shade of black as Elruin. Really sell that 'foreigner' illusion, if we get the chance."

Elruin's hair color was exotic, that was certain. "Wouldn't that stand out more?"

"Thought of that, but her magic will cook this stuff away." Lemia began dragging her fingers through Cali's hair, spreading the dye in long, uneven streaks. Magic took care of the rest, spreading the chemical from tip to follicle evenly. There was a time, just weeks ago, when this would have tired her. "But If Claron's got his people looking for everyone with black hair, he'll be burning a lot of manpower. It's a popular and cheap dye for the less wealthy girl looking for a husband. See it all the time, even in girls as young as Elruin."

Calenda tried not to think too hard about those implications. "And so you're painting me in colors that will invite men to approach me?"

"I don't think dwarves find human women attractive." Lemia had met a few over the years, not one of which had shown any interest in the 'entertainment' those in per profession offered. "Their courtship seems tied to scent, they've got a crazy sense of smell, I was never brave enough to ask the particulars. If we ever return to Arila, welcome to the poor side of town. Don't worry, it won't be nearly as bad for you as for the girls doing pink or purple."

"Then we need to worry about scent all the more," Cali said.

"I've got some lye and chamomile, to perfume and lighten your skin. This stuff burns like hell, but it lasts until your skin dies and gets replaced. It won't trick people into thinking you smell normal, but."

"It will explain why I don't," Cali concluded. "Can't say I like making people think I'm so desperate for attention that I have to paint myself, but it's better than being hunted down and burned to ash for being an abomination against all that is holy."

"That was my thought." Lemia dipped her finger in the lye, then another in the chamomile extract, then drew her fingers along Calenda's neck, dipping down along her chest, then up behind her ears. She frowned at the soft patches of orange amidst the black, then pushed the inking spell a little harder to cover that remnant as well.

Cali grit her teeth, fighting down the pain which arose from the chemicals spreading across her skin. "Are you sure you're not hitting on me?" Humor, the last refuge of those who need anything else to think about.

Lemia continued tracking Cali's neck, then as much of her back as she could reach."No offense, but this has confirmed I definitely do not. Even if I wanted a woman to warm my bed I'd like her to have warmth. Touching you feels unpleasant, in ways that have nothing to do with your sex. You feel like you're made of wax instead of flesh. I've got no way to hide that."

"I need new armor and some gloves, anyway." Now that it wasn't an option, Cali took a moment to regret how she'd avoided intimacy through her life. "Won't have to worry about getting undressed often, without those pesky distractions, like sleep, and toilets, and monthly visitors."

"Ugh, maybe I will take Ell up on the chance to convert."

"Never mind, we got more immediate bloodshed to worry about." Cali stopped walking until Elruin caught up. While she hesitated, she felt outward with her botanical magic, tracing the damage done to the trees as men climbed them, and the sensation of those hiding in the underbrush. It wasn't a perfect map, but it was a hard one to hide from. "This is what a real bandit ambush looks like. Ell, I count eight men and three horses, you?"

"Also eight men," she said after a moment. "Two in the trees, four together on the path, two hiding in the bushes."

"That's what an ambush looks like." In matters such as this, Cali was the expert. "Enough men up front to intimidate, nobody pretending to be a woman to lower anyone's guard. Anyone who looks dangerous comes through, they'll claim they're just hunters looking for deer. Wouldn't be surprised if they do hunt, while waiting for more valuable game."

"Do we go around?" Lemia asked.

They're weaker than us, and bad men that try to hurt innocent people." Elruin said. "We should tell them they have stop."

"As if that would work," Lemia muttered. She'd never met any bandits, or at least none that had told her what they were, but she knew some dangerous people and couldn't imagine they would ever quit. A life of crime was far too lucrative, for those willing to take the risks.

Cali smiled her first genuine smile since her death. "It's so devious, I love it."

"Huh?"

"Scratch, take the monster, go around behind and get ready to scale the trees to take the archers. A good bow can get through Ell's defenses, maybe mine. With everyone focused on us, you'll be poised to strike before they realize there's a threat. Lemia, you've got the camouflage, stay hidden, get close, and use Elruin's death magic to snipe. Since we're all immune to that sort of magic, it doesn't matter if you hit us."

"And what will you be doing?" Scratch sounded less than impressed.

"Exactly what Elruin suggested. We walk straight to the center of the ambush and tell them not to be bad men."

Suggested Listening

Soon, they were in position, with Scratch and his puppet near one tree, while Elruin and Calenda walked down the path until they found the men. These four did well to hide their lack of surprise or suspicion as the pair approached. "Who goes there?" One of them held a long skinning dagger that would work just fine as a weapon.

"Just me and my sister," Cali said. She tried not to laugh at how absurd the situation was. "We are heading north, to dwarven lands." She kept her head down, pretending the necessary politeness for conversation between men and women. No questions, no requests, simple statements of fact in as few words as possible. Normally, she despised it.

"The dwarves are many days travel from here." The man in charge took a cautious step forward, to avoid startling the women until the trap was closed. "I'm afraid I can't imagine what would drive anyone to travel so far in such dangerous terrain, without the safety of a caravan."

Cali walked forward as well, keeping the timid but clueless act for as long as possible. "Acheria is in danger. A terrible warlord conquered Arila, and killed hundreds. I fled with my sister, but his men are all over the countryside. I fear the dwarven lands are the only safe place remaining."

She didn't know whether stories of Arila's conquest were becoming known yet, but the story would explain their dirty appearance and lack of protectors. Half of the risk these bandits sought to avoid was stumbling across some dragonslayers out looking for a fight rather than an easy victim. Thus this conversation, which would remain innocent until the moment they felt confident they were dealing with helpless targets. In this situation, their lack of armor and limited weapons helped push the illusion.

"I'm afraid we've been hunting the woods for some time, so we hadn't heard." Now was the time when the awkward barrier between sexes became annoying. He wanted to ask questions, but such was impossible without causing insult.

"It was recent, just days ago," Cali said. Another meek step closer, Elruin right behind her playing the role of a proper child who did not interrupt while adults were speaking. "He's taking all the nobles' wealth and having them butchered or worse." She was glad her new body didn't show emotion easily, or she might have cringed as she finished her line. "I feared for me and my sister's purity."

At least she could take comfort in the knowledge that Elruin was the only one who'd hear those words.

"Dark news, indeed." Now that he was looking, the bandit could tell that beneath the dirt, the two girls were wearing expensive garments, though not opulent ones. They weren't the best of prizes, but the clothes would fetch something and the older woman would at least serve to bolster morale. Besides, he did want to hear this news about an invading warlord. He motioned them inward, to the camp. "I'm sure you're hungry, and have much more news to share. We can spare some of our venison if you tell us everything."

A bit of breach from social protocol, the offer. The final test. A dragonslayer would have too much pride to accept at the cost of adhering to the demands even if it was only for information, but desperate, hungry refugees would be willing to suffer far worse humiliations for food and safety. "I wouldn't want to impose on you."

"Nonsense, a deer has far too much meat for us to eat before it goes bad. I must insist you keep up your strength, for your sister's sake."

So many lies rolled into one that Cali had trouble counting all of them, and another command. This one more blatant. "You're right." She brought a hand up, to touch her stomach, then put both over her chest. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"I'm glad you feel that way." He smiled the smile of a man getting everything he wanted from a woman. He stepped closer to Calenda, and pointed his knife at her chest. "Now, do everything I say and I promise you and your sister will walk away alive."

Cali didn't even need her magic to spot that lie. "First, my little sister wants to say something to you."

"And what is that?"

"You're bad men." Elruin stood up tall, and looked the bandit in the eye. Her glare was wasn't too intimidating, until her purple eyes turned solid black. "You tried to hurt my sister." She gestured at the bandit, using her death magic to make him sorry.

He took a step back, even blocked the attack. As strong as he was, his arms were numbed rather than completely disabled.

An arrow streaked from the trees, catching one of the other men in the torso a moment later. Scratch's contribution to the war effort.

Calenda acted next, by kicking up a cloud of mist around them. She felt the whistle of the other arrow, from the other archer, which she blocked with her hand, rather than taking the risk of dodging and it hitting Elruin. The arrow stuck, but didn't manage to penetrate more than an inch before her hardened, dead flesh stopped it.

Soon, a scream came from that tree, no doubt the result of Elruin's "dollie".

Elruin walked forward, able to see fine with her lifesight as she picked off a fleeing bandit, leaving Cali to deal with the leader. He might even have been a difficulty fight, if he wasn't half-crippled by Elruin's surprise attack. He was skilled, remarkably so, and even managed to drive her back with a series of wild, chaotic swings from his knife.

I don't know if I'd have been able to keep my arms working that well after taking Elruin's attack. Still, speed and power were both on Cali's side, and she had the benefit of ranged options. She gripped a rock, chucked it hard at the man's head. He tried to block, suggesting some sort of combat magic, but his arms were too slow and his head rocked back.

To her surprise, he still remained standing. He ducked away, covering his head with his arms in time for his armor to stop an arrow from the sky. Cali rushed in, punching low while dodging swings. He blocked her, then had to dodge an arrow from Scratch's new host.

This was the definition of frustration, but in a way it was exhilarating to face an opponent that could hold up under these circumstances. Pity, he could have made a fine Guard if he'd had any human decency. She got in close, and much to her surprise took a hard blow when he stepped in and kneed her in the stomach. At least two of her ribs had to have been broken, and the force sent her flying back.

She landed on her feet, surprised for a moment before she remembered that she didn't need to breathe, her heart didn't beat, so as long as her torso was in one piece she would be able to function fine.

A stream of necromantic energy shot past her, going wide. It never had a chance to hit him, and he didn't try to evade. The second bolt came closer, forced him to step aside.

Cali charged forward, got another couple jabs in before getting kicked back again. Worse, she was beginning to tire herself. Her body could withstand punishment that should be fatal, but it did so by drawing on her magical reserves. Didn't Elruin estimate this guy was weaker than us?

"Block this, you son o-" A cracking thud ended Scratch's battlecry, as his puppet- body landed atop their mutual foe. He did block in time, for what little it mattered against a man slamming into him from a forty foot fall. The puppet had to have died on impact, but was still able to grip the leader, grappling him long enough for Elruin to get a second death-bolt on him, then a third.

Cali joined, gripping the man's legs in an attempt to hold him still while Elruin's magic finished the job.

Soon he stopped struggling, and Cali could hear his heart cease.

"Well, that one took a beating," Scratch muttered.

Cali bid the fog to clear, leaving them to look at the damage they'd inflicted.

"Let me go!" One living prisoner, held in the grip of three monster-hands while the thing scaled down the tree. "Enge Protects! I'm sorry, please, let me go, I swear I'll go straight! I have a family!"

"No can do," Scratch climbed out of his dead host-body. "You know too much to be allowed to live. Which must be a novel experience for you. Your choices are quick and painless with her, or slow and horrible with me."

"Me?" Cali looked at him. "Why me?"

"Because you're both feet and half that perfect ass in the grave," Scratch answered. "If you don't get healed now, we'll be carrying you the rest of the way to the dwarves."

"You can't!" Held the way he was, he could do nothing more than scream for help. "You're monsters! Demons!"

"That's right," Scratch retorted. "We're monsters. What's your excuse?"

Elruin walked up to them, her eyes focused on Cali's injuries. "He's right. I think I might be able to repair you, but it will take time and power."

"Which we don't have."

"Please! I'll do anything! We have money! I'll show you where our stash is, where we keep all our- mmph!"

Calenda's hand had snapped out, latching on to the bandit's mouth. She wasn't much for having a crisis of conscience, and if she was, she wasn't going to waste it on this waste of humanity who helped murder and possibly rape any number of people who deserved to exist. With a dip into her vampiric shard, she stole strength from his body like taking a deep breath.

The sensation of her body mending itself, bone stitching back together, and lungs reinflating, was indescribable, but amongst the most decadent experiences of her life. "No need, Ell. Your strength is more important than a bandit's life."


=====

Lemia, crushing all your sapphic necrophilia shipping dreams.

Could you imagine how the early fights would have gone, with Elruin at this point? Dark Mistress of Dollies and Death.

Banditry is dangerous work in a world where people other than the PC are capable of shrugging off hits from ranged weapons fire. Half the game is testing your marks to make sure they can't casually rip your arms out of their sockets before provoking them. Not everyone has Elruin's lifesight, almost nobody has her natural skill with it.

In the game, there will also be significant morality changes for just killing people unprovoked. You don't know they're not hunters... at least, until they try to rob you. In which case, maybe they're still hunters, but they asked for a necromantic lobotomy, and Elruin's there to deliver.

Notice: I probably won't be able to do a chapter tomorrow. I'll try, but I can't promise much one way or the other.

 

Because I'm an extra-special snowflake who isn't content with a two dimensional magic structure, mine has a whole third dimension. Since I lack any programming skills at all, you'll have to visualize rather than me building a cute little program to do it for you. But, hey, if someone wants to volunteer to build a graphical version, that'd be awesome.

=====

Picture a pyramid, then take an identical pyramid, turn it upside down, and stick them together. Or, for those geeks out there, just picture a D8.

Four of the points are the "traditional" elements of Earth, Water, Fire and Air, let's say they occupy the "ground level" of the pyramids. Now, imagine the top point of the pyramid is the elemental force of Creation, while the bottom point is the elemental force of Negation.

For a total of six elements, what are known as the Prime Aspects. Is this starting to sound a little like Age of Wonders, yet? No surprise there.

Now picture a line between each element and its neighbors. Each of those lines is one of the Border Aspects, sharing elements with its "parent" Aspects, but also possessing its own unique properties. There is a total of twelve Border Aspects, for 18 overall aspects.

It also forms a total of 3 "rings", each with a total of 8 aspects within. I'll be explaining the aspects using those rings, for what I hope is easier visualization.


FUNDAMENTAL: Thaumaturge, Enchanter

Fundamental isn't considered an aspect, it's the energy that all things have natural access to. A "neutral" magic, as it were. Fundamental magic covers building complex magical structures (including potions and magic items), detecting the flow of magical energy, and identifying the nature of spells and constructs that are being used. Thaumaturges also develop talents to tear down and destroy other enchantments, or reprogram them to suit other purposes. On the battlefield, thaumaturges are often deployed to "counterspell spam" enemy mages.

Fundamental magic is exceedingly complicated compared to most mage styles, since it works with deeper forces rather than the more abundant and easily manipulated forces of Aspect magic. As such, few other than devoted scholars pursue the art.

Career options: dispelling curses, inflicting curses, crafting potions, constructing magical devices, reshaping sarite shards, and teaching other mages to better harness their abilities.

Master Fundamental mages are often called Archmages or Artificers.


ELEMENTAL RING:

The traditional four elements form the elemental ring, which share in common the nature of directly altering the physical materials of the universe. They do not create nor destroy, they merely manipulate or alter what is already there.

The elemental ring goes as follows: Earth - Plant - Water - Mist - Air - Desert - Fire - Forge - Earth


EARTH: (Geomancer, Terramancer)

Earth mages work with rock, soil, and minerals. In terms of resilience, they are second to none, though they lack ranged offensive options. Most of their magic works slowly, reshaping the environment around them and establishing battlefield control.

While considered too slow to be effective in direct combat, Terramancers have their place as walking siege weapons, Given time, they can devastate enemy defenses, bringing down even the toughest fortifications with their ability to manipulate the ground. In addition, they make excellent frontline warriors with their superhuman durability and strength magics.

Career options: Construction, demolition, infrastructure planning, finding rare minerals, and maintenance.

Opposite: Air


PLANT: (Botanical Mage, Mud Mage, Shaman)

Shamans mostly work with plantlife. Their main tricks revolve around reshaping the living environment to their needs, not unlike geomancers, but they can work their magic faster than any geomancer of equivalent skill. Some will also work with mud and quicksand, when the opportunity arises. In addition, plants have any number of useful properties, which shamans often have magic to identify and exploit.

On the battlefield, they have most of the durability of a geomancer, but more maneuverability options and the ability to hamper the movement of their opponents, making them frustrating foes.

Career Options: nonmagical poultices, pain relievers, and poisons, farming, floral arrangements.

Opposite: Desert


WATER: (Aquamancer)

Aquamancers are infamous for their ability to change to circumstances and surprise their enemies. Adaptive, swift, and deceptively lethal, they excel at evading and confounding enemies before coming in for the kill against an exhausted and disoriented foe. They make effective assassins, but still are rather lacking in ranged offensive options. Unlike the geomancer and shaman, aquamancers can usually use their battlefield control magic. In non-combat situations, their adaptability lets them adjust to situations as needed, and most can summon or cleanse water so that it's safe to drink, or breathe underwater.

Some Aquamancers focus their power on the small scale, crafting some illusions and cosmetic alterations of bodies. Some rare water mages are talented shapeshifters.

Career Options: summon rain, or reduce the power of floods, clean poisons, provide drinking water, plastic surgeon.

Opposite: Fire


MIST: (Atmokinetic, Illusionist)

Sometimes called illusion or storm mages, they combine the confounding power of the water mage with the swift ever-mutable nature of air magic. Storm magic tends to have less forceful but wider scale magic than their water counterparts, and focus mainly on the deceptive and illusory options that their more offensively oriented counterparts lack the finesse to accomplish. Very little an Atmokinetic does has any permanency, but their range in both distance and versatility is not to be underestimated.

Career Options: illusionists, entertainers, assassins, full army support

Opposite: Forge


AIR: (Aeromancer)

Aeromancers are infamous for having the longest range, and least directly powerful, magic. Air mages tend to be fragile, relying on agility to keep themselves alive while they kick up windstorms to blind their foes and prevent ranged attacks. Particularly strong air mages can generate hurricane force winds, able to ruin an enemy force with their power. Many air mages can use their magic to hear from great distances or send magical messages on the breeze.

Career Options: Messenger, Spy, Scout

Opposite: Earth


DESERT:

Also known as dust mages, sand mages, lightning mages, and dessication mages, the desert mage has many options to combine the speed and range of air magic with the destructive power of the fire mage. The desert mage is infamous for indiscriminate harm they can inflict not just upon their foes, but upon every living thing near that foe. Even lightning, one of their most focused abilities, has a bad habit of missing or hitting multiple targets that may not be what the mage intended. As such, they are often disparagingly referred to as "collateral damage" mages.

Career Options: Climate control for libraries, killing people in horrific ways

Opposite: Plant


FIRE MAGE: (Pyromancer)

Pyromancers are perhaps the most vulnerable of all mages. Lacking the durability of the Earth mage, the adaptability of the water mage, or the speed of the air mage, the pyromancer's magic is almost completely offensive in nature. Their spells are fast, controllable, and have a solid range, giving the pyromancer freedom to focus on raw, destructive, potential. Their main vulnerabilities are their lack of defenses and sensory magic, making them exceedingly vulnerable to water mages. They can also use their magic to inspire passion and confidence, though those talents are more common amongst the neighboring 'blood' and 'madness' aspects.

Career Options: If it burns, we can kill it... also great way to warm your house.

Opposite: Mist


FORGE MAGE: (Volcanist)

Often considered the ultimate war mages, a forge mage specializes in concentrating raw power and defensive ability into pinpoint accurate death. While possessing less resiliency than a pure earth mage, or the ranged offensive power of the fire mage, the volcanist has devastating front line combat ability, and often favors use of heavy weapons and armor to augment their combative style. Their lack of mobility tends to hinder them in combat, however.

Career Options: Everything you want from a main battle tank


SPIRITUAL RING:

The spirit ring, sometimes known as the cycle of life and the metamorphic ring, are the Aspects which guide the nature of life and death. These aspects are about life, death, rebirth, and the fundamental truth that nothing remains forever.

The elemental ring goes as follows: Creation - Peace - Water - Ice - Negation - Madness - Fire - Blood - Creation


CREATION: (Manifester)

Sometimes mistakenly called Life magic, Creation is a much more fundamental concept than life and death. It is the binding force that allows existence to exist, and maintains the dynamic nature of the universe. While all forms of magic manipulate or alter matter and energy in some way, Creation magic is the magic that brings things into being in the first place.

Manifesters build from nothing, creating energy and even matter without any discernible source. Strong manifesters can create weapons, armor, forcefields, and even golems from pure magic, assembled into ever more complex forms. Many believe that creation-aspect gods can manifest spirits and even living things using their power, and that it was from this that all live originated. Creation mages also have a natural tendency to develop precognitive abilities, and are the only bloodline which can use Resurrection magic.

Career Options: Even weak manifesters can find eager employers amongst other mages who benefit from having a natural font of magical energy nearby. Strong manifesters are necessary to power certain magical constructs without resorting to such tactics as human sacrifice.


PEACE: (Healer, Peace Mage)

Combining the infusion of power abilities of Creation with the metamorphic nature of water, healers represent peace, tranquility, and a soul at rest. They possess a strong sense of self, and while amongst the least effective warriors of any path of magic, they are amongst the most valuable to the soldiers who survive the battle. Their ability to cleanse mental wounds as well as physical make them indispensable. If forced into combat, they can often calm the enemy and convince them to lay down their arms.

Opposite: Madness


WATER (See above)


ICE: (Frost mage, Hypothermia mage)

Ice is the aspect of the slow but steady loss of strength, the entropy of running out of strength. Ice mages represent the spiritual decay brought on by age, and are known for using pneumonia, darkness, lethargy, weakness, and frostbite to bring down their enemies. Some ice mages also learn to exploit the defensive and offensive options available in the form of using actual ice, but the majority prefer to rely upon their more subtle powers.

Career Options: Assassins, saboteurs, battlefield debuffs galore

Opposite: Blood


NEGATION: (Necromancer, Exorcist)

As with Creation, Negation goes far deeper than mere death. It is also wrongly interpreted as destruction magic. All magic can be destructive, but destruction does not cause a thing to cease to exist, merely changes its state. When a forest burns, trees cease to be trees, but they still exist as ash and smoke. When water freezes or evaporates, it changes form, but it still fundamentally exists. Negation magic is the true end of existence, leaving nothing behind. They are the only source of true, complete, death.

Necromancers deal with death and that which lingers after death. Much life pyromancers, necromancers have few if any defensive abilities, but they do tend to possess a natural talent for detecting energy. While all but helpless against Creation mages, a Negation mage has a natural advantage against all other forms of magic.

Career Options: Killing monsters, killing people, killing infectious diseases, killing the dead, killing the undead, killing magic, killing basically everything else


MADNESS: (Scourge, Hate Mage)

The scourge strips the sense of peace and tranquility from their victims, leaving only anger and if pushed far enough, violent insanity. Their magic inspires paranoia, rage, antisocial behavior, and obsessive fervor. It can be used to inspire armies before battle, or to drive foes to slaughter their own comrades in fits of jealousy and resentment.

Career Options: Not great as spies, per se, but damn can they mess with an opponent battle plan.

Opposite: Peace


FIRE: See Above


BLOOD: (Sanguimancer, Passion Mage, "Love" Mage)

Cousin of the hate mage, the passion mage inspires great bursts of confidence and focus. On the battlefield, they can drive soldiers to superhuman prowess, and off the battlefield, they are loved for their ability to liven any party. Some blood mages can also temporarily take control of another's magic, but that technique is a closely guarded secret.

Career Options: Anything booze can do, you can do better.

Opposite: Ice


MATERIAL RING:


The material band is one of the physical properties and reality. Material forces tend not to be static, dealing with hard reality and absolute truths with no concern for those who live within their system.

The elemental ring goes as follows: Creation - Mind - Air - Miama - Negation - Time - Earth - Nature - Creation.


CREATION: See above


MIND: (Inquisitor, Esper, Truth mage)

Mind mages are ones who manipulate the thought process and knowledge of others. They do not possess illusions or mind clouding abilities, but most have little or no trouble seeing through the illusions of others. Many are prone to supernatural bursts of inspiration and knowledge that comes seemingly from nowhere, a trait inherited from their creation aspect neighbor. They are highly resistant to mind altering magics.

Career Opportunities: Best Truthsayers, reading minds, being inhumanly intelligent

Opposite: Time


AIR: See Above


MIASMA: (Poison mage, Miasma mage, Plague mage)

Plague mages combine air's natural blanketing features with Negation's theft of life, making them terrifying on the battlefield for much the same reasons as desert mages. Their brand of offense is poison of the air, slowly killing all within every time they take a breath. Asphyxiation, hallucinations, and stealth magic define this bloodline.

Career Path: Nothing friendly, I assure you.

Opposite: Nature


NEGATION: See Above


TIME: (Chronomancer)

Also known as 'erosion magic', time mages play with perhaps the most self-destructive of all magical forces, the inexorable power of time to grind all things to dust. In time, mountains fall to sand and even the gods face their demise.

Time mages couple the patient resilience of Earth with the cold inevitability of Negation. Time mages can pull information from the past, inflict fragility upon objects, animals, and people, and strip away strength and knowledge with their magic. More than any other Negation related path, Time excels at inflicting damage upon nonliving targets.

For those willing to take risks and sacrifice everything for the cause, time mages can accelerate someone, allowing them to get minutes of activity or years of healing done in mere seconds, at the expense of exhaustion and possibly death by heart attack.

Career Options: Remarkable talent for forgeries, investigating lost secrets, making sure secrets stay lost, and frustrating mind mages

Opposite: Mind (Time makes fools of us all, you know)


EARTH: See Above


NATURE: (Ecomancer)

Nature magic mostly deals with the animals of the wild and the power of the physical body. Strength, stability, and the laws of kill or be killed define this path of improvement of life by constant warfare. Nature mages sometimes control animals, but most prefer to take the traits of animals upon themselves, granting themselves the power of beasts rather than lowering themselves to enslaving others.

Nature mages also have some access to healing magic, though they're much better at healing themselves than others.

Career Options: backup healer, deadly warrior, friend of animals

Opposite: Miasma


=====


A/N- and there you go, all eighteen elemental aspects, with a generic idea of their abilities and position on the magical D8.

... I swear, it'll be a whole hell of a lot cooler in video game mode with visuals...

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin sang to the dead, spoke to them, forced them to speak back. Flashes of knowledge, families left behind. Calenda's prey spoke the truth, he had a young wife Lemia's age along with with twins that were just learning to walk. He had also not been lying about the 'stash', though he left out the series of traps and the small army which guarded it.

"We'll have to fight lots of people to get their treasure," she said. She left out the family; Cali would be sad if she knew. "They're all bad men, with prisoners."

Calenda hesitated for a moment, then pulled a small sarite crystal off the dead man. "Too much risk, too much time wasted on a small handful when the entire empire is at stake. We'll come back later to deal with this group."

"They'll move their camp by then," Lemia said. "These guys didn't last this long by being sloppy."

"I know, but there'll be some clues left behind." Calenda pulled a coin pouch off the body next.

"I believe that is where we come in." "Oh, yes, we would help so much."

"Morks!" Cali jumped back from the body, and took a combat stance. "Everyone, stand back to back. Elruin, blanket the area!"

"No need." "We're not here to fight." "Not you." "We watched." "You smell of blood. "And death." "And power." "You would slaughter us to the last." "Our pups would starve." "We make you an offer." "Then leave in peace."

"Watched?" Cali glanced around through the forest, but saw nothing. "They have a wind mage, scrying from outside our range." Scrying magic may have been disrupted in the region, but it hadn't been eliminated. Close range and targeting a known location was the simplest scrying spell.

"Smart and powerful." "Yes, we are wise to avoid fighting." "You would be wise to accept our offer." "We track your prey for you." "Leave trail for you." "We cannot slay them." "You can." "Take their treasures." "We need them not." "Leave their bodies." "You need them not." "You get your gold." "We get our feast."

"On one hand, I love the idea of creating more carnage." Scratch began climbing into the bandit leader, whose entire essence had been hollowed out by the constant barrage of death magic to the point that even if someone wanted to revive him, it would have been impossible. "On the other hand, morks will turn on us the moment they think they can kill us."

"Alas, our reputation precedes us." "It is true, most of our kind cannot be trusted." "Tis our lot in life." "But we are not fools." "To fight you costs everything." "To aid you costs nothing." "To aid us costs nothing." "Or do you plan to drag all their corpses home with you?"

"As ghoulish as the offer is, it's a good trade," Cali admitted.

Scratch's new body sat up. "We might be planning to take one or two of the corpses."

"We see." "But surely not all of them." "To drive them from the forest is still a boon." "They steal our prey." "No respect for our homes." "They would hunt us if they could." "Take what you need." "Leave us the rest."

"They're bad men. They hurt innocent people," Elruin said. "I know Claron's more important, but I want to stop them, too."

"If you want." Cali put her hand on Elruin's shoulder. "I can't promise we'll return soon, but we accept your offer."

"I knew you were wise." "Ours was a good bargain" "You win." "We win." "They lose." "We shall claw the trees." "Point you toward them." "The marks shall last all season." "But do not tarry too long." "We cannot know what the future holds."

"Is that a good idea?" Lemia had never encountered morks before, and had little to go on other than rumor. They were not flattering rumors. "Can they be trusted?"

"No further than I can throw them," Cali said. "But I can throw one pretty far if I have to. They're cowards who think with their stomachs, and we're much too dangerous for them to risk for two edible women. Even if we don't leave a trail of bodies behind for them, this is a win-win since the bandit presence has to be driving away their usual prey. I've made worse bargains with worse people, before."

"You flatter me." Scratch held out his hand, offering two shimmering crystals to Cali. "Here, I can't use them."

"Thanks. Start stripping the bodies, especially the sarite. The weapons and armor aren't worth the effort to carry. And keep the conversation to a minimum for a minute, I need to hide us." Cali took the time to focus on some of her more difficult spells, but soon the trees began to shimmer and sing as her magic infused them. "Whew, that took a lot more out of me than I'm accustomed to."

The song was more than metaphor or Elruin's Requiem. Every leaf in the forest shook, brushed against the others, cumulating with the others in a cacophony that made it hard for them to hear one another, and extended into the ether to disrupt magic.

"Not the most subtle spell, but we won't have to worry about spying morks now." Calenda took a moment to steady herself, took a deep breath out of habit rather than utility. She was now adapting to the downside of no longer experiencing exhaustion; she could no longer rely upon her body to tell her when she was reaching her limits. Objectively, if she tried to go this long without food, water, or sleep, then took a beating like she'd taken in this fight, she might have died from exhaustion. Being an abomination made her more resilient, but it didn't make her unstoppable.

She squeezed her fingers around the crystals, sampling them one after another. "Oh, these shards are nice." One water, the other plant, both ideal for wilderness survival and combat. "I'm keeping the one that grants combat skills and hides my magic from detection. It's best on a front-liner like me, anyway. Hmm. Lemia, you should have this one. I think it'll help with your alchemy, and it will also help us avoid monsters."

"Uh, sure," Lemia accepted the shard. "Oh, I see what you mean. While we're here, there's a thunder-bloom by that tree. How do I know that? I've never seen thunder-bloom that hadn't been ground into powder already."

"Botanical magic's funny like that, you'll get used to it," Cali said. "Ell, do you think that hand-monster can pull a cart? The bandits have one hidden up ahead."

"Yes." She didn't see why not. A quick bark of music that was only possible thanks to her resonance with Calenda and the monster responded to her orders. She could imagine that other mages with this type of spell could stop her from giving orders to her dollies. Nearby, the dessicated corpse started to climb to its feet as well.

"I think, maybe, the essence drain magic leaves a little of your essence behind." Elruin stared at the newly minted walking corpse. With concentration, she looked deep within it, seeking out the seed of undeath that she'd awoken when she sang. "We need to be careful about how you use that magic."

Cali looked at the results of her actions. She hated to imagine what might have happened if the morks ate a tainted corpse. The things were bad enough when they were alive. "Nevermind the monster, I have a better idea."

She found the cart, and the two beasts which pulled it. She wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, mules." A mean thought that they couldn't possibly smell any worse dead crossed her mind. Focusing all her remaining power into upper body strength, she grabbed both animals by their throats and began the parasitic theft of their life force. Being animals, they didn't replenish her magical reserves much, but they had what it took to mend her back to physical peak.

It would be enough for now, and in the worst case scenario they were collecting a fair amount of sarite she could use to recover magic. She looked in the back of the cart, finding a great deal of raw animal meat, some fresh hides, and some cooked and salted meat in a barrel.

"Well, that'll make the damn coyotes happy." She began to slide the raw flesh out of the cart, in part because it'd slow them down, and in part because she knew how nasty this would get over the next few days of travel.

Elruin came to help as well, scouring the blood from the back of the cart and forcing the mules to climb to their feet. "I can't control any more dollies," she told Cali as they worked. "Not unless I drop control of others, or stop shielding you."

Entek na. "That's fine, we should limit the number anyway." Life, such as it was, could only get worse for her if she had to continue leaving a string of corpses behind for Elruin to clean up after.

Suggested Listening

For all her bravado in the church earlier, Lemia hesitated to pick at the bodies for sarite, or to empty their pouches. The weapons were easier, if only because they were nearby rather than

"Don't tell me you suddenly got squeamish around corpses, Spook. You were diggin' through those centaurs like a fatty who smelled bacon." The former leader of the bandits, now Scratch's new host, smirked at her, then returned to dragging two bodies to the nearby pile. "And I saw you pawing the un-scout earlier. She ain't into you. More's the pity."

"Hey, I can handle long-dead demons, and Calenda is..." Lemia shuddered as Elruin's new 'dolly', the man Calenda had stripped of life, walked by. Chunks of skin and flesh sloughed off like caked mud and dried leaves. "I'm having the world's longest hot bath when this is over. Three weeks, minimum."

"Sounds nice," Scratch said. "Been forever since I took possession of a bath."

Lemia almost complained that Scratch never stopped, but that would have encouraged him further. "So, while you're feeling talkative, what is the story with Calenda? The real story."

"Couldn't tell ya, Spook. On one hand, I know she's not into women. On the other hand, she literally chose to die, rather than marry a handsome, wealthy, and powerful man. You'll have to ask her."

"She has no idea what she is, but you do." Lemia hesitated for a moment. "No. You don't know, either, do you?"

"I play my cards close to my chest, Spook. You ain't gonna trick me into revealing anything."

"You already have. I know your tell!" Lemia laughed, though it wouldn't carry far through the rustling leaves. "You were terrified of Ell bringing Cali back. Cali was halfway between death and what she is now, Elruin was... well, Elruin's just oblivious in general... but there's something going on here and you don't know what it is, do you?"

"My secrets are mine, not yours," Scratch said. "Maybe I'll share some of them with Elruin, but not you."

Now Lemia was certain; Scratch didn't joke about important stuff. He'd been avoiding Cali for a while, and even now wasn't as enthusiastic as he had been in the short time she'd known him before. "Then I'll tell you what I know. First of all, Cali's not undead."

"Then what is she, if you're such an expert?"

"Not a clue. I had my hands and magic all over her, her body is definitely dead, the same as all the rest of these corpses. And it's undead, loaded with the same taint you are. But her mind and soul didn't experience the same ravages as her body. She's intact, she's alive whatever the status of her body. And everything I know about death, revival, and undeath screams that this should be impossible."

The more she spoke, the quieter Scratch got. "I'm sure you know the little secret those with resurrection magic don't like to talk about... they don't bring the soul back. What they do is pull together the remnants of life force that haven't been consumed, then they use their magic to fill in the gaps, like mortar and bricks to make a wall. That's why resurrections are so messy. What comes back is not the same being that went in. Same face, same memories, similar enough personality that friends and family can fool themselves into believing the trauma is to blame for the inconsistencies, but not the same."

"Sounds like a bigger abomination than they call me."

"I'd love to see you standing next to someone who's been revived, to compare how similar you actually are, but that's not important right now. What Elruin did was something different, neither revival nor enslavement, something that kept the soul in one piece. I can't explain it, and neither can you."

"Can not, will not, impossible for the outside observer to tell the difference."

"But I know better because I watched how you panicked when Ell told us what she had planned. I thought it was suspicious then, and now I know why. You thought Cali was going to come back an abomination."

"So?" Scratch stuck his head out of the chest of his puppet. "I've created four abominations in the time I've been working with Elruin, thousands more over the course of my existence. Other than what are admittedly the nicest legs I've ever seen on a dead woman, Calenda's no different than the rest. Unless if, as you say, her soul's still in one piece."

"True." She had no counter-argument that it wouldn't matter to Scratch what happened to Cali. Then she started to smile as the last piece fell into place. "But Cali was never your concern, except maybe as a curiosity. It's Elruin you were worried about!"

"Shoulda possessed you when I had the chance." Scratch muttered. "Fine, you win. Creating undead, true undead, not whatever it is that Cali happens to be, leaves spiritual marks on the soul. It's pretty much the same taint that is the undead, eventually drives the necromancer to the same madness that normal undead experience. An undead soul in a living body, the opposite of Calenda. Do I need to explain to you how bad that would be for Elruin?"

"Which is as good as admitting you have no idea what she did to make Cali," Lemia said. "Other than that it avoided this taint. My only remaining question is what makes you care so much about the status of Elruin's soul? I don't think you need soul to continue this con you're running on death."

"Who said it's death I'm trying to con?" Scratch returned to dragging bodies. He'd be keeping a close eye on her, she was much too dangerous.

Fine, keep your secrets for now. Lemia returned to scavenging the corpses. She'd be keeping a close eye on him, he was much too dangerous.


=====

Voice of the Dead... it'll be fun using that spell in the game.

Not all random encounters in the game will automatically end in violence, especially as the whole "reputation: power" climbs. Sooner or later, enemies will just surrender or run. Or offer bribes. Bribes are fun. And there are other mechanics to dissuade indiscriminate slaughter.

This isn't the only path where morks convince Elruin to help kill bandits. Really, morks just like it when someone else kills things so they don't have to.

And, yes, one of the big problems with your undead party members and minions will be that there is nothing to tell you if they're healthy or injured, or what those injuries are, unless they're outright missing limbs. In essence, Elruin has to check manually. Also... no mana recovery. Which is not a problem for the mindless shock troops, but Calenda is a mage.

Also- Cali's wrong. Mules do, indeed, smell worse dead. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. Though death does significantly improve their personalities.


Oh, and players: I went easy on you by having Elruin cleanse the taint left behind. This time. In the game... you forget to do that and you'll start leaving pockets of undeath outbreaks behind. That... is not a good path.

 

Suggested Listening

While Lemia and Scratch had their conversation, Elruin was busy with preparing the cart. They had space enough for the map and the weapons, and even enough for Elruin to set up the cots for her and Lemia, so the now-dead mules need not ever stop traveling while the humans rested. It also made it a lot easier to use the hand-monster as a guard.

"Cali?" Elruin looked up at her older sister who now shared her hair and skin color. It was fun, imagining she might grow up to look like the woman. "How do you feel, now that you're..."

"A walking cadaver?" Cali was never one to beat around the bush, and she wasn't going to let death change that. "Better than expected. I thought it'd be annoying, disgusting, an inconvenience I took on to get away from worse, but it's not bad. I've already come to think it's less gross than being alive. But I find it may be less gross than being alive. I don't get hungry, so I don't eat and don't need to use the toilet."

"So, you're not upset?" Elruin inched closer. "You don't wish you alive still?"

"As long as I have my freedom, I'm content," she said. "That said, we're going to need to find a way to restore my magic. I'm tougher than I was, but everything's drawing off the same source."

Elruin frowned. "But you have the vampire shared, it should replace your energy."

"Maybe you hadn't noticed, but I'm a spellcaster and most of the things we've fought aren't," Cali said. "They don't have enough energy to replace what I burn."

"Oh." In hindsight, it seemed obvious that a mage like Cali who relied on heavy physical magic would consume energy fast, and most monsters weren't magical enough to provide a lot of power back. She wrapped her arms around Cali.

Cali rested a hand on her back. "That's sweet, but I don't know if hugs are- woah!"

Elruin kicked up her black lightning, normally reserved for melting the hands of anyone dumb enough to grab her, and began to sink that energy into Cali's flesh and bones. She made certain to be careful while she entwined their energies and reinforced all of Calenda's magic-driven motor structures. She smiled up at her elder sister. "Better?"

"That was quite the hug."

"I'll be happy to hug you whenever you want," Elruin said. She didn't put any more energy into it; she would need to take time to recover, herself, first.

"I'll have to take you up on that." Cali let herself relax, now that exhaustion had faded into a dull and mild fatigue. "Now, let's get back on the road. The more time we waste, the more people die."

Suggested Listening

"Ell! Wake up!"

Elruin's eyes came open, with Lemia laying right next to her on her face, almost invisible in the dense night fog. Elruin squeezed Squishybones just a little tighter.

"It's goblins!" Lemia remained low in the cart, trying to hide herself as best she could. She'd put together what she could of an illusion using her ornate sword as a basis, but all it accomplished was making them harder to notice. True invisibility was a much, much more difficult feat.

Elruin had never seen goblins before, but they had a reputation for abducting and eating children. Then, it seemed that every story ended with children abducted and eaten. It struck Elruin that there weren't enough children to feed all the monsters of the stories, so either they ate something else, or they all starved to death long ago.

She remained on her back, but began to look through the fog. The trees swarmed with flickers of life, not unlike those of the squirrels, but larger and more vibrant. These monsters were intelligent, that she was certain of. They also didn't seem to have much trouble jumping from tree to tree in spite of it being night and Cali's fog hanging heavy in the air. "How do we fight them?"

"I don't know, Cali said they use swarm tactics, and she always ran from them. They rely heavily on their toxic skin and... uh... bodily fluids. She wants the undead to take point, to draw their fire while we keep pushing for the edge of the forest."

It made sense to make the dead, who could not be poisoned, take point. Elruin began to sing to her new archer guard, ordering it to stand point and fire upon the monsters of the trees. Then she continued singing, pouring necromantic energy into the cloud of fog. Goblins could see through natural blackness and Cali's fog, but perhaps her supernatural darkness would do what they did not. It wouldn't hurt, at any rate. Elruin kept pushing, infusing the area with death magic that would choke the life from those who pursued them.

One goblin dropped, a victim of her dolly's inhuman aim. In spite of the fairy tales, they weren't very tough. The hand-monster took to the trees, chasing goblins who were its equal in its arboreal agility, but inferior in offense and defense. It grabbed them and threw them at the ground with enough power that they burst like watermelons upon collision.

Meanwhile, Calenda dropped another with a rock, since she'd used up all the knives she'd taken off the bandits. They weren't good knives, anyway. It rolled to its feet, then crawled away to nurse its wounds. In her opinion, the worst thing abouts goblins of all types were their ability to heal from any injury short of death, including lost limbs. Or perhaps the worst thing was that they bred so fast that if any survived, they'd be back to full numbers this time next year.

Scratch walked ahead, since he didn't care about his body at all. The goblins pelted him with balls of muck containing copious amounts of their toxins, but all it served was to make the dead man stink of something not unlike a dead skunk that was set on fire. Scratch fingered his chain armor, which was beginning to corrode due to the chemicals.

"Fall back! And watch beneath your feet!" He shouted to the rest of them. "They've got hobgoblins!" Still, Scratch kept his puppet standing, evading what attacks he could while serving as a decoy. Sooner or later, this corpse was going to be overcome to the point that his power couldn't keep it moving, but that was true of everything he possessed. For now, what mattered was getting Elruin to safety.

The name meant nothing to Elruin, who knew little about monsters, but Lemia was a little better read. "Ell, make the mules run. As fast as you can."

"But, Cali, Scratch, and my dollies..."

"Cali can outrun the cart, Scratch will catch up, and we can find you some new dollies! If those things reach us, we're both dead!"

Elruin hated abandoning her dollies, but she knew Lemia was right. She changed her song, amplified it, and did what she could to strengthen the mules as they began running as best they could while still dragging the cart along. She saw the things moving underground, so she changed the nature of her song to go around the ambush.

Too late to avoid all of the trap, the ground caved beneath the cart and broke one wheel. For almost anyone else, it would have meant the end of their fleeing, but Elruin maintained her song. No living mule would have willingly dragged a cart up such an unstable hill, but her dollies obeyed without hesitation.

Their ambush failed, several leprous-white lanky bipedal things emerged from the muck to give chase. Elruin blasted one with a death-bolt, but it didn't seem to do much more than slow the pursuer for a few seconds as the glowing fire of life energy overwhelmed her death magic.

Calenda came out of the woods, flying feet first into one of the monsters, slamming it to the ground, then jumping forward to catch up to the rest of the group. She remained on foot, next to the damaged cart, but threw another rock which beaned one of the goblins to little effect.

"Where's Scratch?" Elruin shouted.

"Dunno, lost track about three body-swaps ago!" Calenda stumbled, then by sheer force of will made her unliving body to get back up and move. "If you've got any crazy tricks, now's the time to use them!"

If death magic wasn't working, then she didn't expect her fear magic to be much better. Perhaps her decay magic, but that ran the risk of destroying the damaged cart. She did have one other option, however. Elruin changed her song, exciting the passions and anger of one of the lead goblins.

"What are you doing?" Lemia asked. Then she recognized the nature of the magic. "Oh, that is brilliant." She joined in, using her magic to mirror Elruin's.

Twin exposure to her anger-inflicting magic was enough to drive the goblins into screeching at one another. If the troupe could speak goblin, they would have learned that one was blaming another for their ambush failing, and the other made a remark about the former's cowardice. Soon, that pair was reduced to violence, while tempers were magically stressed with the others until they, too, succumbed to infighting.

Unable to speak their language, all Elruin and Lemia learned was that goblins could continue clawing at each other long after they had sustained what should have been lethal amounts of blood loss from opened arteries.

Soon they broke into open terrain, the sort of clearing that could only be found near civilization in Engeval where painstaking effort was taken to prevent the trees from encroaching upon city walls. The goblins, having given up on trying to kill Scratch's puppet, remained in the trees, unwilling to step into the open plains where they lost almost all of their range and maneuverability advantages.

Rushing toward Elruin and Lemia from the other direction was a pack of white dogs, their fur glowing in the night, with another set of inhuman but intelligent beings on their backs. They weren't goblins, or anything else she'd ever seen before, but the way they guided their hounds was well organized, a team that had trained to fight in formation.

"Entek!" Cali muttered. "Ell, exorcise the mules now!"

Elruin obeyed, singing her song as she stripped, purified, and consumed the necromantic power of the mules. It didn't restore much of her energy, but it was better than nothing. Their bodies collapsed into piles, leaving the cart still and listing to one side.

The split into two sets well before reaching the cart, circling around on both sides, then going forward to the edge of the forest. The white-cloaked figured on top threw something at the trees, which began to erupt into blooms of flame, and goblins dropping to the forest floor. The rest began to flee into the forest.

Suggested Listening

"Don't worry, they can be trusted," Cali said. "The Hounds are mainly followers of Klaro, true believers in the concepts of order and righteousness. Also many, many Truthsayers, so be very careful."

One of the canines, and its rider, approached. "Hail, tra'lers." Elruin realized the rider was shorter than she was, moments before she pulled her white hood back to reveal a face more akin to that of a rabbit or squirrel than a person, with soft yellow fur covering much of her forehead and muzzle. "You speak wi' Moira and Tua."

The canine dipped its head, as if a bow.

"Hail, Ghost Hound." Calenda forced herself to stand straight, then pulled her Ecrosian icon from her vest. "I am Esra na Ecross. We desperately need your aid."

"Priestess?" The yellow-furred woman gestured, drawing the rest of the pack closer. "Come, let us o'er shelter." While there was no interfaith requirement of supporting the priests of other religions, let alone ones of different cities and species, she needed to know what drove a small group of humans so far through such dangerous wilderness. Promising shelter was a small price for that knowledge.

Cali's strength failed and she collapsed like the corpse her body was.

Moments after, the short blonde was at her side. "She's cold!" Soon, she began to draw on healing energy.

"Stop! You'll kill her!" Elruin shouted. She drew together some of her own magic, to try to shield Cali from harm. Healing magic worked by mending and infusing with energy, but it would untie the 'knots' that made up the puppet-strings which let Calenda's body move. Several of the Ghost Hounds pointed weapons at the pair, interpreting the drawing of magic as a possible attack.

"She's a necromancer," Lemia said. If she let Elruin say anything more, it might lead to Cali being discovered, and all of them executed. Thinking fast, she began to build a case that would trip a Truthsayer or raise suspicions. "And a famous healer in her own right. If she says healing is dangerous, I believe it." All true statements, none of which were in any way related to one another, but still true.

Necromantic healers were an oddity, but not unheard of. "Why would healing kill her?"

Elruin hesitated, sputtered over her words. "Because it will hurt her inside, like poison."

"Please forgive her," Lemia said. "She is a child, and a wild talent. Up until a few months ago she never had a day of formal training with her magic, so it stands to reason she doesn't know how to explain specifics. I think what she describes sounds like mana poisoning. Esra did the hardest fighting to get us away from the goblins." Once again, all true statements that were unrelated.

Many poisoning wasn't an unreasonable explanation, either. "Please, listen to them," Cali mumbled. "I appreciate your concern, but let me rest for now. They can explain the threat."

Tua drew back, uncertain about the condition Esra was in, especially the coolness of her skin, but she was unfamiliar with humans and what was and was not healthy for them. Perhaps they were like dwarves, but the opposite, and felt unhealthily cool to silmid rather than unhealthily hot.

"Right," Lemia said. "I'll explain on the way, but the basic details is that some powerful madman claiming to be Enge's Chosen is going around conquering half the cities of Engeval. We're trying to get a warning to the capital, but had to go north to avoid him and his armies. We were trying to escape to dwarven lands, in the hope that they could deliver the message we can't. Looks like we failed."

The guards and their dogs glanced amongst themselves. "You did not, these are dwar'en lands, but our stone-brothers stay in 'eir tunnels. Silmid abo', stone-brothers below."

"Good, please let us deliver our warnings to your leaders." The sun was just now beginning to come over the horizon, and Lemia was ready for the day to be over. "Hey, Rin, help Esra to her feet." If Calenda wanted to use pseudonyms, then she'd trust they all needed one. "We'll have to abandon the cart for now, but there's nothing of value in it."

The glowing dog tilted her head at the words, then made a small, soft, growl. "Nothing?" Tua asked.

"Uh, I mean, nothing valuable enough to delay our warning. But the, uh, tapestry is important as well." Now she knew they were using Truthsaying magic. Slipping on one harmless lie was worth it to test the waters. "It's a historical artifact. I know not its value in coin, but to scholars, even amateur ones like myself, it is a priceless relic. Everything else is survival tools, I trust they won't be needed under your hospitality.

"And Mister Squishybones!" Meanwhile, Elruin helped pull Cali to her feet, while doing her best to check on her elder sister with her senses. She'd survive, in fact she could regenerate to full if she just remained still for a few weeks while feeding on ambient death energies, but for now she was one or two more spells away from destroying herself.

Lemia smiled as Elruin unknowingly helped her test the limits of the canine Truthsayer. "Of course, I'd hate to forget Rin's stuffed toy, which is extra priceless."

The dog nodded her head. "I understand." Tua smiled. "I ha'e children o' my own. Dena, Uren, show special care to the tapestry and toy. See what you can do about 'e cart and supplies, but 'ey're not a priority. I'll take our re'ugees to Sonhome."

Now Lemia knew the dog was more than just a Truthsayer, she was smart enough to discern nuance in statements. That meant she could understand their language, and was at least as intelligent as most humans. "So, what was that stuff you used on the goblins? I know it wasn't magic, so nonmagical alchemy? I apologize if it is some sort of secret tool."

"We call it 'enom'ire," Tua said. "It's a harmless powder 'at will con'ert to hot 'lame when exposed to certain chemicals. Like on goblin skin. It requires some special ore dwar'es dig up, can't say where else to 'ind it."

"If there's no special secret, maybe I can get some before we go. But first, please tell me you have hot baths in Sonhome."

"We ha'e hotsprings."

Later, Lemia would deny that she whimpered in joy, but Elruin and Cali knew better.

=====

Another almost 3k chapter.

Goblins in this game range from hilariously trivial to absolutely the most terrifying things depending upon your equipment. Notably- they use acid, poison, ranged attacks, use both tree and subterranean ambushes, and any injury that's not a one-shot is at best a temporary distraction. Including Elruin's death-bolts at this level.

But they are mostly one-hit kills, so as long as you have even a modest set of ranged weapons they will drop like flies. The question is how many status ailments they'll inflict in the process. They have lots of them.

On the plus side, most of them don't work well on the dead. On the minus side, Elruin's not dead. Wait... that don't sound right...

 

Suggested Listening

It was slow going, helping Cali limp across the plains, to a city Elruin was beginning to worry wasn't there. Then she started to recognize the wall of trees they approached was not a forest, but in fact an actual wall made of living trees that had been grown close together so that they fused into a single continuous lifeform.

It was, in her opinion, a far superior defense than the walls which protected Arila, in that it was more than capable of blinding her magic. Every branch sang with complex and well-crafted magic that was of powerful but unknown function. She came to the fast conclusion that the magic of the tree-wall would have repelled Claron's attempts to take this city, if he used the same tactics he used in Arila.

"Attempting to take our measure?" Tua asked?

"No." Elruin rethought her words when the white dog growled at her. "Not in a bad way. I was studying how beautiful the magic was. I don't think Claron would dare to invade here."

"Is 'at so? I'll tell you what I tell all 'oreigners," Tua said. "We don't know how good our walls are. No'ing's e'er reached 'em be'ore."

That piqued Elruin's interest, so she opened herself up to the magic, to the songs which resounded and confounded. "You have a Lyra? A stronger... no, the songs are... you have two Lyras?"

"Lyra's the name of the dryad in Arila," Lemia explained. "You might know her better as 'the Granddaughter of Enge', or perhaps 'Daughter of Tythes'. She's powerful, made a magic tree like the one that is your walls, but not nearly as big."

"Ah, you must mean our Sisters, Cleda and Melana," Tua said. "You must be quite skilled to sense 'em so well, 'rom out here. Did you say you had only one Sister in your home?"

"Lyra's the only one we know about," Lemia said. "I've never heard of there being another."

"Such unspeakable loneliness she must endure," Tua muttered. She spent the rest of the walk in silent contemplation and prayer, until they reached the gates of the great tree fortress that was her home. "Welcome to Sonhome."

They passed freely through the opening, without a single guard to stop them, but Elruin could see the magic dancing through the roots of the city. If they were to turn upon these people, every inch of the soil was a trap ready to spring. Either they would be impaled upon spikes of wooden death, or they would be ensnared and stripped of vital energy while waiting for whatever punishment the city saw fit to deliver.

Tua began speaking to other silmid in their native language, which Elruin didn't understand. She returned to the much less comfortable human tongue moments after a pair of silmid approached. "'Ey'll take your companion to a ground nest to reco'er."

"I'd feel more comfortable if Rin stays with Esra," Lemia said. "Don't worry, I can tell you everything of importance she knows about the invaders. She's a good mage, I trust nobody to care for Esra better, but she's not well equipped to explain political or military matters."

"As you wish, but we might speak wi' 'em later," Tua said. "While you're here, you are 'ree to visit the city, but please stick to the 'isitors' section. And don't be too upset by the behavior o' our people, you'll 'ind our culture is... more permissi'e... 'an yours. And keep out o' our bough nests and 'e dwar'en tunnels, 'ey are not sa'e 'or you humans. And don't let Rin out on her own. Our people are beyond reproach, but we cannot speak for all 'isitors."

Once through the great wooden archway, they found themselves on a stone path just wide enough to allow two wagons to pass side by side, and a large trader's pavilion to service and store such things. It was the only artificial stone feature in the entirety of the city that Elruin could see. The rest of the city was covered in wild grasses, with networks of tree branches above where the silmid would leap from branch to branch not unlike Cali, or squirrels.

Elruin could understand why they didn't want humans up there.

Suggested Listening

Hours later, Lemia finally stumbled into their small 'nest'. "Ugh." She looked around. "Uh, do they really expect three people to stay in here together?" The survival tent she'd brought had more space in it than the alcove they called a nest.

Cali shrugged from her corner. "From what I understand, silmid fit seven or eight into nests like this one. Up to twice as many if some are children. So, how'd the interrogation go?" She traced a line from her nose to her jaw, the Engeval cultural gesture to be careful what was spoken of.

"Don't remind me." Lemia sighed. "So, they know know I'm Mila. They know the story about Lord Claron, and that we snuck out with Lyra's help. They seem to have a lot of respect for their dryads, I think it extends to ours, too. Had to tell them that we killed our way through a bandit ambush and stole their cart. Got hairy there for a minute, but necessities of war and all. Also, they said something about caravans saying bandits are humans who act like goblins? I said that was a fair description. What is it with silmid and dwarves hating goblins? It runs deep, like us with the centaur-demons."

"Religious, you mean. Because it is." Cali shifted to a new position, not because she was uncomfortable, but because she had to remind herself to move now that she no longer experienced comfort or discomfort. "The stories vary, but silmid claim that they were the first mammals created by the gods. It's in their name- silm means fur, id means beginning. Their religion teaches that they were to be inheritors of the world, taking over from the reptiles like goblins and dragons who ruled before the age of the mammal, but the reptiles rebelled against the natural order, thus cursing themselves and the world. Naturally, the curse is whatever vice the silmid storyteller holds as the most evil."

"If silmid were first, what are humans, dwarves, elves, and ferin?"

"Well, the dwarves are silmid," Cali said. "That's not speculation, we know dwarves are silmid that became their own bloodline, much like elves descend from human bloodlines. Humans, according to the silmid, were created to serve as warriors and drive out the reptiles who refused to die. Until we forgot our purpose and turned upon ourselves in a civil war that is destined to last forever, which is why silmid want so little to do with us and our wars, they believe them nothing more than the prelude to the next war. Then the ferin were created last, warriors perfected from the lessons learned by humanity's inadequacy."

"Well, ain't that lovely? Anything in there that might be true?"

"We've found dragon remains so ancient that the bone transmuted to stone, which lends credence to the belief that those were the eldest of all species as the silmid claim. Otherwise, the ferin and reptilian religions teach more or less the same story. The difference is that the reptiles claim us mammals to be usurpers who stole their rightful place as the caretakers of the world, and that the world will remain chaotic, flawed, and filled with injustice until every last one of us are exterminated."

"Well, that explains their willingness to keep chasing us even after we killed so many while retreating," Lemia said. "Their whole belief system teaches our deaths are more valuable than their lives."

"About the sum of it," Cali said. "But back to more immediate problems, we were at the part where you told them about the bandits."

"Right, then I told them that Elruin used her necromancy to drive the mules to the point that they died of exhaustion. I don't know how it worked, I'm not a necromancer. They asked me a bunch of questions about magic, then dwarven elders at the meeting declared that they would use their stone magic to send warning to all the major cities of Engeval. I tried to talk them into giving additional help, but..."

"But dwarves are infamously isolationist, and silmid are pacifists to a fault," Cali finished. "Frankly, I'm amazed you were able to talk them into sending messages in the initial meeting. I expected at least three days of begging while I spent every night digging through religious texts to find arguments supporting even that much involvement."

"Yeah, about that. They spent half the time I was there asking about scrying, and suspicious magical activity. I told them Arila was having problems with scrying, too, and tried to imply Claron was responsible. They didn't buy it. So I switched to arguing that at least he was prepared to exploit it, which implies he somehow knew it was coming ahead of time. Still don't know if they agree, but they're getting desperate for answers and want any clues Engeval has to offer. They didn't tell me much, but the goblin population around here's going nuts and they don't know why."

Calenda looked up. "You did good work, but linking Claron to the erratic events was a mistake. If they think Claron has answers, they may contact him directly to ask what he knows, and who knows how that will play out? They don't care who rules the human kingdoms, so long as they stay out of dwarven territory."

"Merat!" Lemia looked down. "All that hard work wasted!"

"No, we can salvage this," Cali said. "Dwarves are slow to act, but when they do, it's decisively. It might take weeks before they're ready to contact Claron, but they will message Engewal and the other cities by the end of the day. And they will stay neutral, which means they won't hand us over to Claron no matter how he insists."

"And he was afraid to fight one Lyra," Elruin added. "Imagine how scary two would be!"

"I guess it all depends on how desperate he is, but I think we're safe. He wasn't willing to fight Lyra, so I don't think he'll come after Sonhome, and he can't absolutely cannot lay siege to a city as well-defended as this one. Speaking of, Rin and I should avoid the dryads. I don't think they'd be fond of me anymore."

Everyone looked unhappy, which made Elruin unhappy. "We should go play in the hotsprings!"

Cali laughed, an odd, silent chuckle since she didn't have the air in her lungs to do a real laugh. She took the breath she needed to speak. "Know what? That sounds like a great idea. Nothing we can do until we all get our strength back, anyway."

"Unanimous vote, then," Lemia said.

Once they climbed out of their nest, Lemia looked at the nearby silmid that was their effective guide for now. "Can you please tell us where the hot springs are?"

"Ataways," the guard pointed toward where hills began to form. "Along the ri'er, impossible to miss."

"We thank you," Lemia held her hands over her chest. Elruin and Lemia did the same as they passed.

Once they got deeper into silmid territory, they realized that Tua was not exaggerating about the differences in culture. The first thing they noticed was that silmid did not wear clothing. Once away from the wall, with guards who wore armor, silmid seemed content to walk around in nothing more than a belt to hold coin purses, and the occasional necklace or bracelet for jewelry.

They were saved from appearance of indecency by the fact that they held few notable human characteristics. Their hind limbs were shorter than humans of their height, while their forelimbs were longer, and they had no breasts or external genitalia. Coupled with their thick but short layer of fur, they might have been mistaken for human children wearing fuzzy, tight-fitting clothes with decorative animal ears. They may have been compared to giant, tailless, meerkats, if any of them had seen a meerkat before.

If that wasn't enough, they had no sense of privacy. While hugs weren't unheard of for humans, the twelve-silmid cuddle pile taking place one of the patches of grass would have been called indecent. None of them were copulating, they were merely hugging and grooming one another, but it was uncomfortable for the women who had lived their lives in a different society where such actions, were they ever to occur, would never happen in public.

"Silmid like to hug a lot," Elruin observed.

Cali put an arm around the girl's shoulder. "They do, but let's leave them alone. They've clearly got enough members."

Several other such groups, none quite so large, were lounging along the trails as the hill grew steeper and the lazy river split apart into numerous fast-running brooks. Further still, and Lemia began feeling the soreness of their climb up the scenic but steep hill.

Near the top, they found a silmid of white fur with stripes of black who grunted and pointed to different paths while speaking in gruff, uncertain words. "Males, 'emales, laundry, toilets. I no good speaking."

Calenda made the gratitude gesture, followed by the others. "Thank you."

"As I walk," the silmid answered back.

"She looked different," Lemia said as they moved along toward the women's side of the springs. "Like, pointier?"

"I think that one was a male," Cali said. "It's hard to spot, but males are a little wider, with more protruding muzzles and more pronounced claws. They're burrowers, while females live in the trees when they aren't in their mates' nest."

"Mates?"

"Yes, mates, and that's all I'm going to explain." Cali gave Elruin's shoulder a meaningful pat. "Keep in mind that silmid aren't like us, on a level deeper than any you imagine between rich and poor or the virtuous and the evil. Those all share the trait of being human, while the silmid do not. Whatever you think of their religious claims that humans were built for war by the gods, it is true that we have a lot of violent tendencies that they lack. Greed and jealousy being two of the big ones. On the other hand, they are indecisive and unambitious, some might say lazy, so it's hard to call them 'better' than us, but they are different."

"I'll keep that in mind."

In the bath, they found a number of silmid near the edges of the water, seeming unwilling to move deep into the water. Instead, they stayed near the shallow edges, and scrubbed one another's fur in the steaming chemical-scented waters. Most stopped to gawk at the human trio as they began to strip for their baths.

With the eyes of the other bathers on them the whole time, there wasn't much the three could speak of except small talk, but after they had been through, an excuse to be quiet and relax in the simple luxury of warm water was just what they needed.


=====


Claron's list of places to not fuck with: anywhere with more than one Lyra.

Lyra has numerous half-sisters. This is not a widely known fact amongst the humans.

Enge is not literally their grandparent... however, the (volcanic) Enge mountains are responsible for the hotsprings and rain basin that forms the rivers that are collectively known as Tythes, whose spirit(s) is/are (gods... so far above mortals that the concepts of singular and plural no longer apply) the parents of these powerful Nymphs. So, in a way...

Sonhome is not-so-subtly based off of a fort I created in Dwarf Fortress. Took a great deal of work, but I kept clearing trees and building walls until I had a protective wall made mostly of fruit trees that were pretty much the only source of food I needed for the entire fort. ... The game may or may not be terribly balanced...

And the silmid are borderline eusocial animals. Similar in many ways to mole rats, meerkats, and the like. Though, really, I base them mainly off of prairie dogs in terms of behavior. Dwarves resemble the Giant Pangolin, without the tail.

... The recent lack of running water in my house may have colored my opinion of the value of a warm bath...

This chapter again got away from me, another 2500+ words and basically only half done.

 

Suggested Listening

Once clean, the trio took the time to clean their clothes as well. Cali had it worse than Elruin and Lemia, since she couldn't avoid the close quarters fighting that saw blood and other fluid splatter on her clothes. In addition, she was the only one of the three who had normal clothing rather than the magically reinforced clothes that was required for training magic, and it showed after the week they'd been on the road.

"We'll need to do some shopping," Lemia said. "That is, if you're okay that most of our money is in the form of stolen gold and coins I doubt they accept here."

Cali held up the tattered remains of her shoes, victims of the hobgoblin attack. "I suppose if there was ever a time to learn to enjoy going barefoot. Pity that would be far too suspicious."

"You're welcome," Lemia said with a smile.

"I don't need shoes to drop-kick you."

"Don't fight." Elruin did her best to look commanding in her damp clothes. It worked as well as one might expect of a grumpy cat. Then she touched her stomach. "Umm, can we get something to eat, now?"

"Huh, somehow I completely forgot about food," Lemia said. "I haven't eaten since last night." She gave her stomach a pat with both hands. "On the plus side, this has been the best diet plan of my life. Well, goodbye flat tummy, hello feast. Think they'll let me have a whole hog?"

"Good luck finding a hog." Cali began walking down the path. "Silmid are insectivores and herbivores. The only meat you're gonna find here is dog food for the ghost hounds. If I recall, they farm rats."

"Couple more days and I might consider it." Lemia spotted a lone silmid on the path, heading toward the baths. "Do you know where we can get food?"

The presumable female, if the flat snout and small hands were an indication, only stood up to Elruin's shoulder. She cocked her head to the side and looked up at them with wide eyes. "Ek?"

"Umm," Cali stepped forward. "Ahtuhk?"

"Atuk." The silmid repeated with better annunciation. She glanced around, then pointed at the ground. "Atuk." Then she returned to walking up the path, wondering why foreigners were always so weird.

"... They eat the grass, don't they?"

"Grass, tree leaves, fruit, berries, bark and wood when they want something to chew on," Cali ran down the list of options. "Their teeth never stop growing, so they'll chew just about anything. Look, there's an apple tree up ahead. Best meal you're gonna find here. On the other hand, they have some of the best dried rations, which we need to stock up on."

"Guess that'll do."

Soon, they'd returned to their nest, where Elruin curled up with Mister Squishybones and went straight to sleep nuzzled against Cali. After the girl child was unconscious, Cali extracted herself and scooted out of the hole to take a seat outside.

"Was the cramped hole in the wall not spacious enough for you and your little sister?" Lemia didn't stop looking up into the soft glow of the leaves of the silmid tree home.

"I've had worse," Cali said. "But I slept like the dead all morning and into the afternoon."

"Hah." Lemia stretched her arms, then rolled to her feet. "This new strength thing is weird, but I'm not complaining. Say, wanna go check out the silmid night life? I need to find an alchemist."

"No, one of us needs to stay here. Go ahead and have fun." She waved Lemia off. "But, uh, keep an eye on your pouch. Silmid are notorious kleptomaniacs. I don't think they see anything wrong with it, they steal trinkets the way human kids play with swords and dolls. Normal kids, at any rate."

"Implying that Rin is normal."

By the time Elruin awoke, it was to the sour tang of acid in the air. Cali and Lemia both sat around the tiny campfire, where Lemia generated a burst of flame every so often to warm the kettle.

"What are you doing?" Aside from the bursts of flame, there was no magic involved in the alchemy that she could sense.

"Took all night, but I found a place that sells venomfire powder, and I got a weapon I can use." She patted the bracer on her arm. "Silmid design, adjusted for humans. With this baby, I can crack a man's skull with a rock from twenty yards. Or use alchemy pellets. The silmid know their alchemy, half their library is full of alchemy books."

"A library?" Elruin's face lit up and she gazed at Cali. "Can we go, please?"

"Sorry, I've got a date with a bunch of silmid leaders to explain what I know about Claron's activities," Cali said. "I doubt it will make much difference, but I can give more information on the scrying blocks, maybe we'll stumble across some clue. And maybe they'll stop eavesdropping once they know everything we know." She raised her voice for the last sentence.

"I'll take Rin to the library when I'm done," Lemia said. "When this mess is over, I might drop out of the College and move here to live in their library. Silmid alchemy couples mineral and herbal properties in ways I never imagined possible, let alone seen before. I don't think our teachers know half the stuff they do."

"Have fun studying while I talk to all the most important people of the city."

"Thank you!" Elruin gave Cali a hug, and a once-over with her senses to make sure all of her work remained functional. "I'm going to read all the books!"

"Have fun trying not to gouge your eyes out from boredom."

Helping Lemia with alchemy didn't require much other than to hand her older friend the right powders at the right time. She had no intrinsic talent for non-magical alchemy, but if Lemia believed it would let her do the same trick that let the silmids set goblins on fire, she approved. Goblins were mean and because of them she had to kill more of her dollies.

Soon they found themselves at what the silmid considered their library, a stout building near the center of the city. The silmid at the entrance gawked at them, but nobody stopped them from entering. "We're here for the human section," she told the scholar at the desk.

Said scholar, who understood not a word of what Lemia said other than 'human', pointed at a small side corner. Meanwhile, the silmid of the library were busy climbing up the walls to reach other sections of books intended for them. Stairs and ladders were things that happened to other species.

Suggested Listening

"I started on this corner," Lemia said. "You go to the other side, and we'll work our way to the middle. Let me know what you find." They stepped around a silmid boy who stared at them from the entrance.

So the pair spent their time in the library, hunting down books that offered the best alchemical bang for their buck. It was approaching midday when Lemia came across alchemy that might interest Elruin. "Hey, Rin, I think I have something for Esra."

Elruin all but jumped at the possibility. "What is it?"

"Well, check this out, they have something here for treating leather, an alternate form of mageleather, but I don't think it was initially designed for that purpose. It looks an awful lot like it was made for funeral rights. If you look here, they're using it to harden the hide against both physical and magical forces, but it could also be used to fortify an entire body down to the bone."

It wasn't too far removed from being usable on living tissue, but life energy would build up within the bindings until it cooked the subject inside out.

The two sat down, reading over the alchemical processes that were meant to fuse fresh dead tissue with magical reactants, in order to protect the recipients from harm in the afterlife. Where the silmid found this book, neither could guess, but it would have been burned along with the author, if it were penned within any human city.

"No," Elruin said after they got about halfway through the book. "They're good ideas, but they're too blatant. They amplify and refine, which is great, but it's too visible. Besides, it's dangerous."

Lemia agreed, it would be almost impossible to hide Cali if they infused her flesh with these forms of alchemy, and there was no telling what effect it would have on the trickery used to protect her mind, but Elruin missed the obvious. "We don't use it on her, we use it on her clothes. It's still a good leather treatment technique." However, she wasn't the only member of their group which was undead. "And maybe on dolls?"

Elruin's eyes widened at the prospect. It would take time to craft the alchemical paste, longer still to find the proper ingredients, but given time she could coat any of her dollies with the substance, making them stronger and tougher than before by a significant amount. She would have to be extra-careful about which dollies to treat, however, because they would be expensive and stand out to magical senses.

"It's perfect," Elruin whispered. "We need to find some untreated leather right now."

"I know where we can start looking." Lemia set the book down next to some of her own paper and ink. "But first, we need this." She began the necessary vocalizations, then started to trace patterns of the spell that all scholars would learn with time. Tiny drops of ink lifted from its phial, then jumped to the blank paper, a perfect copy on white of the yellowed parchment containing such a brilliant spell.

She flipped through the book, finding methods to work runes that reminded her of the sarite protections build into walls of cities, powered by sapping energy from the very magic trying to bring down the walls. It was inferior to sarite defenses in some ways, but in a siege it beat anything she'd seen before.

Soon, she'd moved on to golem-crafting techniques, then into weapons techniques. It seemed like the whole book was built around using Negation magic as a replacement for Creation magic all wrapped in rituals exalting and worshiping the dead. Dozens of pages of notes, rituals, and techniques using knowledge that would turn magic society on its head. The trick would be to avoid getting her own head removed for possessing it.

She rolled it up with the other useful recipes she'd found, half a dozen methods to improve alchemy using what were not uncommon reagents in the wilderness, if one knew where to look. The mineral recipes were less useful, but she knew there'd be scholars back in Arila who'd clamor for the privilege of learning these new methods.

With a final glance back at the library, she swore to herself she'd return some day to all the glorious knowledge this place held.

Moments after they left, a silmid boy stood from where he sat next to the two human girls. Then he took a certain text from the shelves. A book which did not belong here, which did not belong anywhere, save for this brief moment to deliver information a certain young necromancer needed to survive her coming trials.

It had served its purpose, and so it returned to the aether from whence it came, along with the boy.

[placeholder suggested listening] (Seriously- I need something here and can't find anything fitting)

Meanwhile, Lemia and Elruin made their way to the shop where Lemia picked up her new weapon. It looked different in the day, now that dwarves had stocked the place.

Inside, Elruin came face to face with her first dwarves. Taller than the silmid, they were almost to Elruin's height, but so broad that their arms were thicker than her waist and hung down well past their knees. Each was coated in thick, silver, shield-shaped scales that covered their entire bodies, with longer and looser-hanging metal draped on all sides around their neck like a chain armor coif.

They seemed mostly to be moving stone out of the tunnels, along with various metalcrafts along a back wall. Signs in their language let Lemia and Elruin read the basics of what metal equipment and treasures could be purchased here, including all sorts of armor and weapons sized for men and women, with promises of custom designs for a modest fee.

A bulkier than usual dwarf walked over to them, using both fore and hind limbs. Unlike all the other dwarves in the building, he had scales of solid gold. "Do not be upset, but your hair? 'at is how humans display 'ey are 'emale, correct? I can get my wi'e, to put you at ease?"

"That would be appreciated," Lemia said.

The dwarf twisted his head further than a human could without breaking his neck, and literally barked toward the back. Soon, another dwarf that looked just like all the others came waddling into the room.

"Ah, human traders," she said. She kept her mouth closed as best she could, for long experience had taught her that humans did not appreciate the broad, toothy display of the dwarven mouth. "Tell me, what do you seek to trade? Or perhaps you seek more weapons?" She had also perfected the art of avoiding the sounds it was difficult for dwarven mouths to produce. It was difficult, but if she did not, some other dwarf would, such was the nature of competitive markets.

Lemia took the time to look sheepish. "Well, that is complicated. You see, we're alchemists who were studying some silmid techniques and we came across some interesting ideas. We were hoping to buy untreated leather. As well as natron and saltpeter, if you have any. Oh, and some ilmenite powder, that's for the venomfire I'm making."

Lemia hoped the mention of venomfire would get her a better deal; as much as these people hated goblins, they might be happy to learn outsiders were going to help remove a few from the forests.

"We can provide all you seek, except leather." She shrugged, a calculated gesture to look more human. Like most calculated gestures, it was ineffectual. "You see, we do not eat meat. We use spider silk."

Lemia thought about it for a moment. "Would spider silk work?"

Elruin shook her head; when it came to necromancy, she was the expert. "It must be from living animal tissue. Silk and fur aren't close enough." She chose not to mention that flesh was the ideal substance, that of sapient beings more than anything.

"Perhaps, spider shell? No charge." It was odd, but she'd come to expect oddity in dealing with humans. "Is not good quality, garbage, but you need experiment, so you do not need quality?"

"It should work," Elruin said.

"Better than going into the wilderness to hunt for supplies," Lemia said. "I'd rather we know it works, before risking our lives out there."

"Yes, and what quantities do you require?"

"Not much, for now," Lemia fished into her pocket for two of the coins taken from the centaur temple. "I hope these are acceptable."

The dwarf woman accepted a coin, then licked it. "I need to consult my husband." She barked at where the gold dwarf was speaking to another human, a man who looked to be part of a mercenary or merchant band. There wasn't much difference between the two, when on the road.

Soon, he waddled back over to the group, barking quick sounds at his wife while she barked back. He took the coin from his wife. "Odd coin." He stuck his tongue out, licking it as she had. "Centaur gold, you 'ound 'is in ruins, no?"

Lemia was taken aback that the dwarves knew of centaurs, but all of her books knew them only as 'demons'. She then thought about lying, but decided against deception on the cusp of a business deal with what might be the only merchants who could speak their language. "I hope you don't expect me to tell you where the ruins are located."

"No, you are welcome to them," the dwarf said. "Many centaur relics in your lands, more than any one could explore. Centaurs use almost pure gold, not but a small amount o' copper."

"So they're worth something to you." Lemia liked it when she had something others wanted, made life much easier.

"Yes, say, 'e equal o' twel' o' your billon coins?"

"Fourteen."

"Deal, but only i' you promise to remember my generosity next you return to our establishment."

"Oh, I swear I shall," Lemia said. She wondered just how much she got ripped off, but now was not the time to start arguing. The supplies would be expensive enough as is, and later she'd need to find a trustworthy appraiser.

"And is 'ere more you may desire, while here?"

"Uh, I have a question, please?" Elruin put her hands together, in request.

The dwarf regarded the child-human, as tall as he was though laughably skinny. It took him a moment to realize she wasn't going to say any more. "And your question is?"

"Why are you gold?"

The golden dwarf began to laugh, a deep, echoing sound that drew attention from all nearby people.

"Rin!" Lemia hissed. "I'm sorry, that was rude of her."

"Rude?" The woman-dwarf scoffed. "E'reyone asks him about his color. Some days, I'd almost suspect he hires people to come in, but I'm the one who tracks our spending"

"Pay her no mind," the dwarf said. "It is a simple, but important, story. See, dwarves eat metal." He held up the coin that came from Lemia, then tossed it in his mouth. "Stone, too, but metal is most important. Our bodies are natural 'orges, we absorb it and it grows out as our scales." He slapped his arm, eliciting a mighty metallic echo. A dwarven handprint was left in his shoulder plates. "I, a goldsmith, turn gold ore and alloy into pure gold. It is a prestigious position 'or our most success'ul."

"That... is quite the ability," Lemia admitted. "Hey, Rin, do you think a dwarf... uh... scale? Might work instead of the spider?" She had no desire to pay for a gold scale, but it looked like there were plenty of dwarves with iron or copper scales to draw from.

Elruin looked through her vision, then shook her head. "No, it's too much like hair, it won't work."

"Worth asking." If the spider shell worked, it wouldn't matter. "So, while we're here, let's see about your other supplies."


=====


Something about Elruin trying to be intimidating amuses me. When it works it amuses me even more.

Squirrels are thieving bastards. They also have a habit of hiding "treasures" in places, then coming back later to dig them back up.

Midaran dwarves are perhaps my favorite creations of the setting. Except the magic system and ecology, for it is from them that all else stems.

Drop the tail, and this is a good idea of what they look like

Also... the stuff Lemia ordered are real chemicals with real properties... you may even be able to guess the nature of what all these alchemical trickeries are if you do a little research.

And why do I keep doing this to myself with these 3k+ chapters? *Weeps*

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin was hard at work over the alchemy pot when Calenda returned, so much so that she failed to notice her elder sister had arrived until Lemia spoke.

"How'd your interrogation, I mean interview, go?" Lemia wasn't paying too close attention to Cali, being far more concerned with the chemical paste they had made for the purposes of bolstering the undead. Try as she might, she couldn't comprehend why anyone would develop such magic, but it existed and they were going to use it as best they could.

"I spent the whole time remembering one time I was having dinner with... acquaintances... and one of them expressed a concern that I'd get myself killed outside the walls." Cali slumped down next to their nest-hole. "I can't remember my exact words, but I said something about being immortal because dying requires too much paperwork. Proving once again that the universe is a joke, and I'm the punchline."

"Well, the universe better stop right now," Elruins said with a huff. She continued working, for now was the proof of concept. She dipped the spider chitin into the white paste, which blackened with necromantic energies as she hummed her necromantic song, converting the complexities of alchemy and weaponized magic into a structured, patterned magic.

Through Calenda's sense, it felt as it had when she was controlled by Scratch, for those brief moments she could. Echoes of death, and things deeper still, rippled outward like waves crashing against Elruin's. Each new pulse outward, pushed back until it was held like a pond in the space of a mud puddle.

Lemia's eyes saw something quite different, as the formula of Elruin's math twisted, folded folded inward, and 'solved' itself one step at a time until it was locked into the simplest possible expression. She had seen such work, done better, as part of her enchantment courses, but it was interesting to watch Elruin fumble around with the basics and using raw power to compensate where she lacked finesse.

Soon, she held up the shimmering black tar-soaked shell. Black electricity danced from it to her skin, seeking a place to discharge itself and finding Elruin's skin contained more power than it did. "This is my gift!"

"Oh." Cali reached out, as if to pick up a dead mouse offered to her by a cat. She'd never owned a cat, in fact the closest thing she'd ever had to a pet was Lyra, whose idea of a gift was turning her house into an indoor jungle. "Woah!" Once she had grip on the strip of material, the energy pulsed outward into the lower, shallower 'pool' that was Calenda's energy pool. Once in the larger pool of a human woman, it wasn't quite the significant power that it appeared to be when concentrated into a strip of tissue, but it did serve to restore some of her limited power before the remnants of chitin crumpled to the ground as black dust.

Elruin sighed in disappointment. "I thought it would last longer."

Lemia put a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. "That's what test runs are for. We knew what we were creating was just the 'potion' phase, and with what we learned we can move on to enchantment."

Cali blinked. "Are you telling me you could turn that into an enchantment?"

"Uh huh," Elruin smiled up in pride at her elder sister. "I can do it with any of my spells."

"Don't get too excited," Lemia said. "There is a significant gap between the power you got there, and what enchantment can do. What you experienced there was, for all intents and purposes, the same as you'd get from a potion. The permanent version might generate that much energy every six hours, and that's if we do everything perfect and have quality attuned sarite to work with. But without a lab, a trained enchanter, and the perfect set of supplies, you'll be lucky to one that can restore that much every twelve to fourteen hours."

What Lemia left out is that no other enchanter could do the work they were doing. It normally took a creation mage to set the groundwork of permanent magic items, or so her scholastic experience had taught her. That negation magic could accomplish the same in its own odd way was nothing she had ever considered before. To her, negation was always a means to eliminate other magic, not add more.

"At this point, I'll take it. Good work, little sister." Cali rested her hand on Elruin's head. "So, what do we need for the permanent version?"

"A lot of things, but Lemia can explain better than me." Elruin was barely at the point of producing potions that didn't explode or decay in mere minutes, let along long-term enchantment work.

"To leave Sonhome, for starters," Lemia said. "We need fresh untreated leather of the highest quality possible. Which we can turn into... I suppose you could call it Necromantic Mageleather. We'll want a supply of sarite to grind for dust, the closer to pure negation we can make the powder, the better."

"But I thought there was no such thing as pure negation sarite?"

"So you see our dilemma," Lemia said. "The best we can hope for is 'close'. Scourge aspect would probably be the ideal, not that I know where you'd find shards like that. But once we pull together all those supplies, it should take no more than a day or two to craft a basic magic armor for you. The best part is, if you're near full strength, the bleedoff could even be used to hurt whatever you hit. I was thinking spiked gloves."

"Not a weapon, or boots?" Cali considered herself much better with her feet than her hands, and thrown knives were her preferred backup option.

"You want as much surface contact as possible, and the ability to take them off fast. This sort of thing will be visible to mages who know how to look, and once they start looking-"

"Hush!" Cali hissed, then focused her eyes on the shadow in the distance.

"Hey, outsiders," a dwarf shouted from the clearing. He, or she as the case might be, began the slow bipedal gait toward them. It was a show of respect, shouting from a distance before approaching. "My name's Ketak, heard some rumors about you. I'm here to o'er my blade to your cause. And since it matters to you humans, I am a 'emale."

Knowing she was a woman did matter, social norms being what they were. Now Calenda crossed her arms, ready to tell her to get lost without feeling awkward in the process. "Ours, specifically?"

"Anyone going out to bash goblin skulls is a cause I can get behind," the dwarf said. "And i' you wanna get on 'e good side o' our leaders, the easiest way is to haul back a mountain o' goblin corpses."

Cali kept her eyes locked on the dwarf's, unwilling to look at Lemia or Elruin for fear they might react to the idea of corpse piles. "We haven't decided we want Sonhome's help, save sending the message they already sent. It's possible we're about to double back into human territory, or march further north, straight into the Enge mountains. We have a number of concerns."

"Like your hidden stash of centaur gold? It ain't quite goblin hunting, but it's a close second i' I get a share."

"One thing I love about dwarves, they don't waste time," Cali said. "We're not going treasure hunting, not any time soon, and we're going to be dealing with human concerns, not dwarven interests."

"So long as 'ese lead-scaled cowards remain hidden here, I 'ear no'ing will be dwar'en business. No matter how many o' our sons and daughters die out there, we hide. Sooner or later, some'ing's gonna come 'at our walls cannot save us 'rom. Sonhome will die as Helmar and Leteka died be'ore 'em. I' I'm to die, I'd ra'er bring an army the size o' 'e mountains wi' me. I' I can 'ind no reliable allies in Sonhome, then I seek them wi' humans. Take me to one o' your cities, and I'll do 'e rest."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lemia said.

"I can see you need to talk to your people. I' you make a decision, come 'ind me at 'e trading 'orges. I'll be 'eir, i' nobody else has taken my o'er by 'en." Ketak turned and began her lumbering back to wherever it was in the city that she called home.

"So, in my expert opinion, she's either greedy, insane, or a spy," Lemia said once she felt they were outside hearing range even for a dwarf. "And I seem to recall you saying something about dwarves not being known for such things."

"There are exceptions to every rule," Cali said. "But a spy- even a dwarven spy- would at least have given us a better lie."

"Or she read up on Ecrosian literature," Lemia countered. "That speech was right up there with your 'die on my feet' line."

"I detected no deception from her. So she believes herself enough to beat a Truthsayer."

"You're not a mind mage!" Lemia stepped closer to Cali, not that she had any hope of intimidating the undead warrior who was two inches and at least fifty pounds heavier than her, all of it muscle. "I may not have that skill, but I know that if you're not reading minds, you're reading magic flow in the body. Does that work on things that aren't at least close to human? Besides, even if she's sincere, how long does that last when she meets Scratch?"

"We can deal with that later," Calenda said. "But I think it's clear we're not going to see eye to eye on this. We should see what Rin thinks."

"Did... did you just hand a tie-breaking vote to a twelve year old?"

Cali gave perhaps the smuggest smile that any of them had ever witnessed in their lives.


=====

You heard it here first, folds. Elruin's threatening to stop the universe. Clearly she is the most vile villain this side of Saturday morning cartoons.

"Lead-scale" is a dire insult for dwarves. Because lead is a heavy, soft metal, it is viewed as undesirable to process it as they do other metals. It represents laziness and weakness to a species that values hard work and strength above all else. Even other base metals- like tin or nickel- have value in the sense that they're the first metals a child-dwarf uses to work their skills. They may be viewed as 'childhood' minerals, but childhood is not bad.

And I am having real trouble keeping enough active voters to get timely votes for this story, so if you wanna join in on the fun of controlling how these characters (well, mostly just Elruin) go through the story...

https://www.digitalwildwest.org/threads/midara-requiem.330/

Go here and you can start guiding the story in some semblance of the video game it was intended to be in the first place.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin gave it some thought. "I think we should take her with us. She's strong and we need lots of help to stop Claron." How the dwarf could accomplish such a goal was anyone's guess, but Elruin couldn't imagine how any of them could stop him either.

"It means hiding Scratch, but I struggle to consider that a downside," Cali said.

"Fine, I guess I'm outvoted, but for the record I think if Scratch was here, he'd be on my side, with a number of counter-arguments."

"Trust me, I know." Calenda took a seat next to the nest. "So we'll get our shopping done tomorrow. If we want to stick around here for a while, we could earn money and goodwill by clearing out the forests. If we want to take the morks up on their offer, we need our cart repaired, new animals to drag it, food, I could use new armor, and maybe some of that acid-protection sarite if we can find any."

"Can we sell our bandit weapons? It might help."

"Well, dwarves are always eager to buy scrap metal," Cali said. "I never knew why until today. But truth be told, we're better off keeping them. We can't afford weapons of high enough quality to replace what we've already got, and as fast as we cycle through Rin's toys, equipment is better than some small handful of billon."

"Or for experiments," Lemia added. "But she's right, we need tools a lot more than money right now. Especially if we're going to be in the wilderness which doesn't care how rich you are, unless you used those riches to hire a personal army."

"But we'll finish our preparations tomorrow," Cali said. "For now, Rin needs her sleep. Right now, she represents more than half this team's magic power. If she's not in fighting form, we're all in trouble."

As Elruin slept, who older guardians did their work in private. Lemia, studying the notes on necrotempered leather while working on the rote process of crafting more venomfire. The thought occurred to her that if she got hold of some goblin toxins, she could make a truly terrifying bomb.

Meanwhile Cali spent her time going through her martial arts routines, learning to adapt for the differences between her living and dead bodies. A core aspect of her entire style was understanding and awareness of her body at all times, which was hard to accomplish with her new unliving form. She'd been lucky thus far that they were fighting creatures, rather than intelligent foes, because any skilled fighter would spot her hesitation and exploit her mistakes.

Morning came, and with it a hug from Elruin to Calenda and the energy restoration she suspected she'd have to rely upon for quite some time. She bristled under the knowledge that she was so dependent upon Elruin, but it wasn't as bad as being under Garit's thumb, or worse yet Claron. Here, at least the dependency was mutual, as the poor child had little chance of surviving on her own.

Once back in the trading camp, it didn't take long for Ketak to find them. "So, does 'is mean you want to work toge'er, now?"

Calenda gave a nod, then took the role of team leader as nobody else seemed to want the role. "We've talked it over, and just need to make a few things clear. First, you'll have to bring your own equipment. You can buy out of your own share of treasure we find. Most of which will be in the form of sarite. We can loan some of ours, but it will be a loan. This includes food."

"Deal." Ketak didn't hesitate, she was confident her equipment was better than theirs, anyway. "But not i' you're going on the ocean. Dwar'es don't do well in boats. We part ways in the port, deal?"

Calenda hesitated to reveal too much of their future plans. "Deal."

"And second, we need you to synchronize with Rin," Cali said. "You are revealed, right?"

"I am. What's 'is about synchronizing?"

"It's a special technique that accelerates magic attunement between people," Cali said. "What's important about it is that Rin's death magic can hurt allies as much as enemies, so if we can establish some resonance, it makes everyone's life a great deal easier."

"Ah, is 'at what you call it?" Ketak looked at the little necromancer for a moment. "I should tell you, we dwar'es call 'at a marriage. I didn't 'ink humans had 'at type of magic."

"My team has... an unorthodox historian," Calenda said. "And more than one thaumaturgical scholar. I'm afraid we only use the magic for utilitarian value, not your cultural beliefs. I suppose we can waive the synchronization."

"I didn't say I wouldn't do it," she said. "It's a magic ritual, it means no'ing wi'out vows and duty, aside making us stronger. I wanted to see i' you knew, is all."

"We'll need to purchase the last of our supplies first, then we can do the ritual somewhere private," Cali said. "It's easier to perform when you don't have to worry about interruptions."

"Acceptable," Ketak said. "I'll come wi' you, keep 'em 'rom gouging 'eir prices."

As it turned out, they hadn't gouged their prices, not that Cali had expected they would. They burned through much of their supplies, providing a suit of chain armor for Cali, getting their cart fixed and some animals to pull it, and some other basic equipment such as several days of food which they might need on the road. The only unusual treasures they found were some sarite.

One, a powerful Forge shard that could hone a warrior to deadly accuracy, and another offered powerful regeneration and an aura of deadly poison that afflicted everything the wielder touched, including herself. That one went straight to Calenda's hands, since she was immune to the poison. It turned out she was also immune to the regenerative effect, but it was better than nothing.

Suggested Listening

Elruin sang of her abandonment, of her lost home, left to die in the wilderness.

The soft echoes of Ketak's scales changed the nature of the song, their shared pain.

"Oh, Mother, you worry too much. These are some of the safest tunnels we have." The young man, Tetark, did not speak in either language Elruin knew, but she understood him nonetheless. He was a handsome, strong stone-brother, or so his mother thought when she 'sang' of him. He was a good man, with freshly minted scales of steel ready to face the world and all its horrors.

"But they're fresh tunnels," Ketak insisted. There was nothing she could do to dissuade her son, for unlike the human society, dwarves did not grant any special authority of parents over their adult offspring, and it would be inappropriate to use clan authority.

"That they are, but we are well prepared." Tetark gave his hammer a not-subtle pat.

Ketak rested her hand on her son's shoulder, felt the furnace within him as it is within all dwarves. "We all are, but promise not to rush to your death."

"I promise, Mother."

It would be the last moment they shared heat.

Elruin sang, she sang of Calenda and her rescue, being taken to the safety of Arila, of being granted a new family.

Suggested Listening

Ketak rejected her song, the first Elruin had ever experienced such a thing. Ketak refused to accept Elruin's story. Her song of loss climbed in intensity, evolved into the song of the death for her sons, her daughters, and her home. The echoes of hope and mourning alike burned away, leaving nothing behind but hatred.

"We have to run!" Her coward of a husband pulled her arm. "They're coming up the tunnels! If we stay here, we're going to die."

"Then we die fighting!" She yanked her arm free, leaving long gashes in soft silver plating. "Send out the orders! Gather our warriors at the third banquet hall, use it as the choke point! Their only advantage is numbers, take that from them!"

She rushed for the hall, herself. She would avenge her children, no matter the price.

She never had the chance. There were hobgoblins in the halls well ahead of the choke-point, and they ambushed her on the path. Their acid-infused skin against her fire-infused claws. They fell screaming, their regeneration struggling against the cauterization of flesh. She screamed as well, for their toxic fluids took their toll, melting her claws and burning her fingers.

Individually, they were no match for a warrior like her, but there were no individuals amongst the goblins. They were a mindless hoard, a swarm of ants, with no care to the numbers that had to die so long as the swarm triumphed.

Still she fought, as the venom on her skin soaked inward, replacing the burning fire of her blood with the burning poison of theirs.

Then, the rumble-snap as someone enacted the final solution. The caves began to collapse inward, the stone dropping layer by layer. Some cowards had chosen to sacrifice the life of Helmar itself, rather than risk their own.

The stone fell atop them, crushing the goblins and Ketak with them. She survived, though it took her over a week to dig her way to the surface with her wounded claws.

So she sang, of the power of hatred to push people to succeed where they otherwise could not.

Elruin, unable to push for a more serene accord, changed her voice, sang of the struggles at her cousins' farm, and the bandits who were not bandits but sought to kill the babies. She sang of her fear and uncertainty while fighting them alongside Cali, of killing them one after another so that other, innocent, lives would not have to fight. Changed a song of a past worth killing over into a future worth killing for.

Ketak adjusted her song, sang of justice and defense, not far removed from her prior song of revenge.

It was an imperfect synchronization, for there were many differences between Ketak and Elruin. One was a dispassionate human child, the other an obsessed dwarf mother, but both could find common ground that there were terrible people who did not deserve to live. Even if Ketak would feel rather offended by the implication that goblins were people.

Elruin trembled, fighting down the stomach-churning emotions of being buried alive with the toxic remains of the goblins. The song could not be continued, not now, perhaps not ever, but it had served its purposes.

Ketak nodded, as dwarven mouths were not made to smile as humans. "We ha'e an understanding."

Elruin understood many things, now. She understood what fanaticism looked like. She understood that of everyone she'd ever met, Ketak would make the most terrifying of undead monsters. She understood that this woman would drive a species to extinction if given the opportunity. It took a great deal to rattle the little necromancer, but that sort of fervor was more than adequate.

"We have an understanding."

Soon, they left the safety of the walls through a gate that only barred them in so much as to warn them. "There are a lot of goblins in the woods," the hooded silmid warned. "Are you certain your team can handle them?"

"E'en our protectors speak in terror o' goblins," Ketak muttered. "Sonhome is lost, it simply does not know it yet."

Calenda began to regret inviting the dwarven woman along, but they desperately needed the physical power she represented if they wanted to accomplish anything of merit. "I assure you, we are well equipped for the woods."

They left the safety of the tree, then walked across the empty plains to the threat that was the forest. Elruin began to play her violin before she reached the edge of the forest, sending out the sounds that would tell Scratch they were returning to him.

"Announcing yoursel' to the entire wilderness?" Ketak said. "Can't say I was planning to start 'is soon, but perhaps it'll be better with 'e city so close. Let 'em see us 'ight, and maybe 'ey'll stop cowering behind 'e walls."

"I think she was announcing herself to me." A tall, bulky goblin stepped out from the tree line. He oozed black ichor from dozens of wounds that would have proven fatal twenty times over on a human.

"Troll!" Ketak stepped forward, ready to rush the larger breed of goblinoid. Her scales shook as she drew upon her native flame magic. Trolls were tough, champions of the goblin tribes, but no goblin did well against fire. "Stay behind me!"

"Relax, I'm on the good guys' side." The threat of destruction meant little to Scratch. "For a certain definition of good."

"You're not dead enough to be a 'good' goblin."

Scratch stuck his actual head out from the chest of the troll. "I'm willing to take that bet."

"Wh-what are you?" Ketak stepped to the side, then turned to look at the two mages and warrior that she now realized were allied with this creature. She was surrounded, but if they wanted to ambush her, they wouldn't have given her this warning.

"I am many, many things," Scratch said. "Undead abomination, centuries-old ghost, and aficionado of all the best sins. Narcissism is my personal favorite. For now, I am the thing that's been out here killing goblins to stave off boredom. Except this one, I've done everything I can think of to kill it but it refuses to die, so instead it persists in an agony that no merciful being would inflict upon any living thing. Call me Scratch."

Ketak hesitated while considering the circumstances. She had been taught her whole life that the abominations were the worst monsters of the world, and yet this was the first she'd met. It was a monster, and it seemed not to care if she knew it was a monster, but it was out here doing good work. "I'm Ketak. I hope you don't expect me to shake your hand."

"I can think of a better use for your hand," Scratch said. "Goblins don't die easy, and I've been trying to find ways to kill trolls while leaving a corpse, and it's not working. Come along, I'll show you. All of you."

"Why are you killing goblins?"

"They tried to hurt Elruin, and that's all the reason I need. Please, interpret that as a threat." Scratch slowed for a moment, then made his puppet hold his hand out to Calenda. "Here, some goblin sarite for you. Didn't find much, and I'm pretty sure at least one's dangerous for unshielded mortals. Better than nothing, I guess. But more important, I have replacement dolls."

Scratch led them to a rocky pit not but a mile away from the clearing. In the spring, it would have been flooded with water. In the summer, it was a dry rock-covered gully. Now, it was an abattoir of goblin flesh. Dozens of the small ones, each impaled by the throat on sticks wedged into the rocks. Some larger ones who looked to have died asphyxiating on each others' arms, and in the center another troll like Scratch currently used.

It was impaled by a dozen spears holding its arms and legs in the ground, and at least a ton of rock sat atop its chest. Several crows pecked at its face, even as it tried to bite them, for though the rest of its head was held immobile by wooden spikes, the jaw was free to move.

Lemia backed away, then turned and threw up on the rocks, while Calenda, Ketak and even Elruin looked on in shock at the massacre before them. Necromantic energy danced across the killing field, a small bonfire of taint that still failed to overcome the natural regenerative abilities of the troll. Several of the pinned goblins, however, had died some time ago, and were now struggling to escape their imprisonment.

"Like I told you, these things don't die easy." Scratch said over Lemia's retching in the background. "I had to get creative."

=====

Apologies for not updating yesterday. Migraines. They suck.

I like the thought of really embracing the "forge element" concept for dwarves in particular. They, more than any race, really epitomize the element's concept. I liked dwarves as a concept long before Dwarf Fortress became a thing, because they're just a fun idea, which explains why I love DF so much.

Also. I missed Scratch. Love his character.

Ketak's elements are Forge>Fire> (with time, the potential for either scourge or blood, depending on player choices... scourge is the default, however...)

Speaking of, I'm chewing over making some of these synchronize-flashbacks controllable by the player. Selecting specific fragments of Elruin's memories leading to different outcomes (all viable outcomes, but altering the starting stats, magic, and even personality of the other party members to a small extent)... but the game's going to be complicated enough as is...

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin sang to the fermenting pool of torture and death. Scratch's taint pulsed through flesh that refused to let itself cease, so Elruin sped the process with her Requiem and Rot of Ages. With time and effort, her power squashed their regenerative power and allowed death to claim them. One after another, their struggles ceased and they joined Elruin's control, even if that control was limited to four of the dozens of dead.

When she had taken as many as she dared, she began to break down the remaining energies. Nothing good could come of leaving the taint to spread and grow, unless she wanted to replace the goblin threat with an undead one.

The remaining members of the team considered the situation in their own way. Until now, Elruin's collection of the dead had consisted of incidental undead, born of circumstance rather than deliberate cultivation. This was different, and nobody other than Scratch was quite certain how they felt.

Ketak had never seen anything like this in any form, but she told herself the victims were worse, so it did not count. Calenda accepted it as a necessity of war, she'd made her peace with worse crimes. Lemia reminded herself that they were desperate and in need of any advantage they could get, especially in such hostile terrain.

Scratch relaxed as the girl walked the desired path without knowing there was a path to walk. "And now you have what passes for your army back, what do we do with it?" In time, her control would grow to such that she could take the entire slaughter pit and a hundred times more, but it would be a long time before they reached that stage.

"We can clear some more goblins for now," Elruin said. Perhaps motivated by her recent synchronization with Ketak. "They should be close." She began to sing again, this time she spoke to the remnants of the dead, forced them to reveal their last thoughts. It took some effort, but she could follow their trails, track their path through the woods. "They have a nest nearby."

"You 'ound it 'at easy?" Ketak asked. "How?"

"It's a necromancer thing," Lemia said. "A little like the synchronizing magic you did with Ell, but only a little. I suppose you can think of it like they're already synchronized, since they're dead and she's a necromancer."

Ketak was many things, but her mastery of magic was almost exclusively offensive in nature. "I suppose i' it works."

"Cursory exploration only," Calenda insisted. "We cannot fight a whole goblin nest with however many hundreds of the things swarming us."

Led by Elruin's stolen memories, the quartet and corpse slaves made their way in the general direction of the goblin nest. They were aware that danger could come from any direction, and that.

Calenda ran her hand along a tree. "I never could figure out how goblin acid will go through metal, clothes, and flesh, but never seems to harm the trees." She whispered; goblins weren't known for having good hearing, but goblins were not the only threat in these woods.

"Maybe we can study that, some day," Lemia said.

Soon, they found their target, a hunting band of a dozen jumping from branch to branch in the trees. "There!" Elruin hissed, and pointed in the direction of the creatures. A quick, soft song awoke her goblin dollies, which took to the trees to intercept.

They moved in, with Katek using her forelimbs to aid her in running, not unlike a gorilla might. Cali took to the trees, while Scratch stayed back with the vulnerable mages.

A pity, it wasn't enough.

The first batch of goblins died in a whirl of confusion, pain, and death, but they were not alone. The team could not know this, but goblins do have hearing well into the ultrasonic range which left them close to deaf to common sounds, but allowed them to communicate with one another over great distances. It was a communication method that almost reached the level of rudimentary hive mind.

When that dozen died, another six dozen heard everything they needed about the numbers, shape, and behaviors of the killers. By the time the party realized what was happening, it was too late. They were surrounded on all sides.

Calenda and Katek fought valiently against their foes. Katek, possessing true immunity to the most deadly of goblin abilities, tried to make her way into a position that would let her protect the less resilient mages, while Calenda was immune only to the poison, not the acid that began to eat its way through her skin. She was forced to rely upon her vampire shard to keep moving.

Elruin blanketed the area in darkness, which did little to impair either side, and killed a few. Others burst into flames, the victim of Lemia's alchemical weapons.

"Fall back! More are coming!" Ketak shouted. As much as she wanted to kill every goblin, she knew the need for choke points and tactics.

In the end, they weren't overwhelmed, they got unlucky and Elruin was struck by a ball of the sticky, caustic ball of toxicity that was goblinoid waste. For a moment, she was confused. A moment later, she began to scream.

"Elruin!" Calenda abandoned her fight, leaving Scratch to deal with her foes on his own as she made her way to her wounded sibling.

Lemia was hit moments later, and then the goblins realized that there were at least two foes that could die easily. Eager to claim at least one life in recompense for all their dead, they converged on the vulnerable.

Suggested Listening

Panicked and in indescribable agony, Elruin screamed her song, a necromantic bomb that flowed outward, killing everything in its wake. Lemia and Ketak were spared, virtue of their attunement to the little necromancer. The grass, the trees, and the goblins were consumed by necromantic power and rendered either dead or dying.

Then, only after witnessing such horrific loss of life, did the goblins choose to retreat.

Lemia, blinded in one eye by acid, gripped one of her shards as she stripped it of power to counter the chemicals melting her flesh. Another shard was enough to mitigate the worst of the poison.

Elruin lay gasping on the ground. Her natural resilience fought the worst of the acid, but she had no special defense against poison and nobody on the team had a method to counter it. Gasping for breath, she turned her sight inward to watch her own heartbeat stop.

I made Cali cry. Then nothing but oblivion.

EPILOGUE:

Lord Claron lost the special powers of the Chosen of Enge, but remained devoted to his god and controlled his territory by inertia, reputation, and violence. In two years he was crowned king of all Engeval's kingdoms. Four years later, he would be assassinated. His disastrous economic policies left the kingdoms in ruin, and ultimately accelerated their collapse to the wilderness. A civil war would wrack the land for the next two decades, costing cities and farmsteads to the wilderness. When the dust cleared, the population and territorial control of Engeval had been cut to a tenth of what it had been before Claron's rise to power. It never recovered.

No longer anchored by Elruin, Calenda's sanity deteriorated in a matter of hours. Retaining just enough of her humanity to take Lemia to safety, she returned to the wilderness and fought her way back to Engeval territory and began a one-woman guerrilla war campaign. Slowly, she lost sight of her reasons, remembering only the goal to kill every last member of Claron's army. Six months after she started her campaign, she was destroyed by a force led by Juna and Garit. They never realized who she was or the significance of the tattered toy horse she carried with her.

Lemia would survive the conflict, if barely. Scarred for life, she was carried back to Sonhome by Calenda, where she would spend the rest of her life researching necromancy and resurrection magic hoping to replicate what Elruin accomplished with Calenda. A little over three years would go by before she was discovered and executed as a rogue necromancer.

Driven by her obsession and hate, Ketak continued her campaign against the goblins. She lived longest of the three, nearly a decade of war before she died of drowning when a particularly clever hobgoblin commander flooded their tunnels with a nearby lake. This would not be the end of Ketak's story. She retained her identity, perhaps in part thanks to her connection with Elruin, and became a sapient undead. She then spread her taint to the rest of the dead goblins and eventually the entire lake. Fifty years after the events of Requiem, her tainted lake remains unassailable by any force in the broken empire.

Scratch moved on. He would find six other necromancers, but none ever quite had the potential of a little girl who died long ago in a fallen empire none of them ever heard of. Then he gave up, as there were no more empires, no cities, no people hiding within those cities, no trueborn necromancers to sing for him. His last flicker of hope died long before Elruin was born, but only a millennium after her death did he relinquish the iron grip on his sanity. She was amongst his last recognizable thoughts.


=====

Don't worry, this is NOT the ending. It is one of many, many possible endings in the game. Because if your game doesn't have an awesome game over screen, why are you even making a game?

Remember when I said goblins were an absolute nightmare to fight without proper defenses, and trivial with them? Yeah... my voters didn't purchase even a single item of defense, then went goblin hunting. This is what a "game over" screen looks like. Because I remember Chrono Trigger and fuck if that wasn't the best game over ever.

... I totally missed it on my first playthrough, however. By then I was a vet of RPGs, and Trigger wasn't exactly a difficult game (awesome, yes, but not hard), so I had to wait for over a decade to see "The Future Refused to Change". I think it was the closest anyone has ever gotten to playing the game for the first time, a second time. Still gives me chills, and I pray this chapter even comes close to that experience.

A different chapter will go up tomorrow (assuming nothing frustrating happens in the meantime... because I wouldn't rule that possibility out...) which will follow a different set of choices from the most current "auto-save".

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin sang to the fermenting pool of torture and death. Scratch's taint pulsed through flesh that refused to let itself cease, so Elruin sped the process with her Requiem and Rot of Ages. With time and effort, her power squashed their regenerative power and allowed death to claim them. One after another, their struggles ceased and they joined Elruin's control, even if that control was limited to a handful of the dead.

It was a pity taint was such a destructive thing, as there would have been quite a supply of sarite and alchemical supplies in this pile of corpses were it not for the consumptive energies of undeath. The solution, then, was obvious enough: hunt more goblins later, when they had the time and resources for proper study.

When she had taken as many as she dared, she began to break down the remaining energies. Nothing good could come of leaving the taint to spread and grow, unless she wanted to replace the goblin threat with an undead one.

The remaining members of the team considered the situation in their own way. Until now, Elruin's collection of the dead had consisted of incidental undead, born of circumstance rather than deliberate cultivation. This was different, and nobody other than Scratch was quite certain how they felt.

Ketak had never seen anything like this in any form, but she told herself the victims were worse, so it did not count. Calenda accepted it as a necessity of war, she'd made her peace with worse crimes. Lemia reminded herself that they were desperate and in need of any advantage they could get, especially in such hostile terrain.

Scratch relaxed as the girl walked the desired path without knowing there was a path to walk. "And now you have what passes for your army back, what do we do with it?" In time, her control would grow to such that she could take the entire slaughter pit and a hundred times more, but it would be a long time before they reached that stage.

Elruin gave it a thought, then made her choice. "We promised the morks that we would stop the bad men."

"You made a deal wi' morks?" Ketak sounded about as pleased with that idea as she was with the undead creatures now climbing out of the burial pit.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Calenda said. "We found ourselves in a fight with a group of bandits, nothing too difficult, and then a mork pack came along, promised to show us where they had their main camp. Their assumption was that we're motivated by taking the bandits' wealth, and in exchange we... well, we don't bury the dead when leave."

"I'm not a fan, either, but we got a few secret weapons, in case they're even dumber than expected." Now that Elruin had been so kind as to kill his puppet, Scratch was a lot more relaxed. Controlling a monster like this one while it lived taxed the upper limit of his ability. Dead, it was as silent and compliant as all of the necromancer's dolls.

"Hmm, can't say I appro'e," Ketak said. "But I suppose morks are better 'an bandits."

"We've got days of travel before it matters," Calenda said. "Ell, keep your new 'dollies' in the rear guard. Scratch, you, too. Ketak, you take point while I scout ahead. Everyone keep your eyes peeled, I only like ambushes when I'm on the giving side."

Suggested Listening

Lemia took another crunchy bite out of her ration bar. "Know what? I think I'm starting to like these things. The nutty flavor takes some adjusting to, but they have good texture and are filling. Compared to the entek slime at the school, this is luxury."

Elruin smiled and gave a quick nod, unwilling to speak with her mouth full. It was rude enough to speak at what passed for the dinner table, it was unthinkable to have food in your mouth at the time. It appeared Lemia was not raised on such standards of polite behavior.

"I'm surprised a human would eat our 'ood." Ketak, too, showed no interest in basic politeness. She took another bite out of a small branch once attached to an oak tree. "Most o' you don't look twice be'ore going back to 'e salted meats."

Lemia took the time to swallow her bite. "Why?" She looked at the remaining piece, took another bite while waiting for Ketak's explanation.

"Humans don't like 'e same 'ings silmid like. Same as silmid don't like human 'ood. Don't get how you can get hungry knowing what you killed was 'illed with blood and guts and 'e same meat you're 'illed with."

"Sure, but that's meat, we still like berries and nuts same as you do." Lemia's chewing slowed, then stopped, as she looked down at the mysterious crunchy bits of the ration bar. "These aren't nuts, are they?"

"Some o' it is. Walnuts, more likely 'an not." Ketak took another bite from her strip of tree. Dwarves could and did eat the same meal as their silmid cousins, but also ate a great deal of tree roots. Ketak in particular liked the crunch of bark and texture of tree fiber.

As she stared down at her food, Lemia's skin began to match Elruin's pallor. "And the rest of it?"

"Dunno, but were I to guess?" Ketak considered the possibilities as she chewed. "Meal worms are cheap, 'ind 'em in all sorts o' silmid recipes. Crickets, maybe, but 'at's higher class, maybe tarantulas i' you're a big spender."

"Meal worms?" Lemia gagged, but held her stomach. "I've been eating meal worms for the last four days? I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Not here," Elruin said. "Get out of the cart, first." She then returned to chewing on her snack, unconcerned that she was eating bugs. She learned long ago that one couldn't afford to be a picky eater.

"How can still eat that stuff?"

Elruin looked at Lemia, and did not speak until she finished with her mouthful. "I can see it's clean," she said. "It has lots less of the bad dust that live in people and make them sick than the meat does."

Lemia stared at Elruin for a full minute. "Are... are you saying you can see the things that make people sick?"

"Uh huh. They're all really tiny, smaller than a fleck of dust, but when you get enough of them together I can see them. They can live inside your stomach or blood, and they're all over your skin and food all the time. When you have too many inside you, it can make you sick. Everyone has them." She looked down at herself. "Except me, I don't have any. And Ketak has lots less than you. I think they don't like heat or necromancy, because dead things have the most bad dust, but my dollies have almost none."

Lemia continued to think. "And what's the places that have the worst bad-dust?"

Elruin sat and thought, herself. "Uh, poop is extra bad. All... entek..." she hesitated to say the word, as it was a profanity she saw her siblings get in trouble for using before. "And meat when it starts to smell funny. Milk is bad, water can be bad, sometimes, if it's not clear water. My brothers' still, but the heat kills the bad dust so it's safe to drink. For adults, I wasn't allowed."

"But alcohol can still make you sick."

"Right, because it has poison in it," Elruin said. "But bad dust is different. It eats your insides and grows like a plant. Like taint, but alive. Cooking kills it, but it floats in the air so it comes back if you leave meat too long."

"Ell, if you're right about this, we could revolutionize the entire medical field." Lemia's mind couldn't begin to guess how many techniques could be developed to curb disease if it was more than just blood-mold-like things that ate people from the inside. "And you're telling me that this... bug... food... has less of the bad dust than meat?"

"Kind of?" Elruin squinted at her bar. "I think it has a different kind of bad dust, a kind that can eat bugs, but not people. But the stuff that eats animals also eats people."

"What about plants, do they have bad dust, too?"

"Some, but less than bug bad dust."

"Sounds like the plan is to eat nothing but plants for the rest of my life."

"Maybe?" Elruin went back to finishing her meal, without much thought as to the nature of disease or revolutionary medical thaumaturgy. She was still hungry, and the meager fill of the ration bars left her yearning for more.

It wasn't long before Cali returned from her jaunt into the forest, Scratch and his troll puppet not far behind her. "Good news, found the end of the mork trail. Ambiguous news, no sign of the morks. Bad news, these guys are equipped and fortified. They're using an old fortress, has what looks to be the same architectural style as the centaurs. It's not big, compared to our farmsteads, but it is well fortified."

She knelt in the dirt and began carving a top-down map of the fort. It was an ovular design, with just a single wall and a couple squares inside that represented buildings. As fortifications went, a simple one, but simplicity worked in its favor if it needed to be defended by a small force.

"We can write off my plan to sneak in and slit all their throats in their sleep," Scratch said. "They got a sarite bubble. Not a strong one, bet we could break it, but they'd know when we started."

"Only way in is climbing the wall, or going in the front gate," Cali said. "I counted twenty guards on the walls, between the two shifts. For a fort like that, I bet it means a total of forty men are inside at all times."

"Which means we rush the walls, or set up for a long term siege," Lemia said. "With Elruin's goblins, we could get over a wall fast if we need to."

"Or go under," Ketak said. "Maybe we can tunnel through, or at least sap a wall."

"Or wait, ambush the first party they send out," Scratch said. "They don't know they've been discovered, and that fort does not have enough space to feed forty men for long. They hunt or they starve."

"Which brings its own risks," Cali said. "Much as I love any plan that takes some of them out early, we can't afford to stay here forever. Claron is still active, and the longer he remains in power, the more dangerous he'll become."

"Can we trick them into opening the gate?" Elruin asked. "If we tunnel close, maybe we can climb out and surprise them, like the hobgoblins tried."

"Normally, I'd reject that plan outright," Cali said. "They must have life-detecting magic, but lifesight doesn't necessarily mean an ability to detect the undead. If they don't have a necromancer, it's possible they won't see us until it's too late.

"We could take multiple approaches," Lemia added. "Sap a wall, then while they deal with that we go over the opposite wall. Or have the undead lead a direct assault while we sneak around. If we play to our strengths and hit them from all sides, I think our odds go up."


=====

Reload from save Y / N ?

~If there's just fuzz where your hamster was ~ It's probably because of tarantulas!~

Seriously, though, there are cultures in our world that eat meal worms and/or tarantulas. Seems to me that an insectivore species would do the same. Could be wrong. Don't think I am. At the same time, tarantula aren't all that cost effective in terms of ranching- they're slow breeders and growers compared to their potential nutritional value. Meal worms and crickets, however? Yeah... they're cheap as it gets.

Elruin accidentally discovers germ theory! +nothing noteworthy for the time being!

Lemia becomes a vegan! -50 to all stats!

That's a joke. I'm joking.

 

Suggested Listening

The first attack on the barrier was meant to be the last. Elruin stood at the tree line, drew a slow, steady breath, then extended her arms forward, hands flat against one another like she was preparing a high dive. Everything she could muster into a single black bolt of power, invisible in the night fog that Calenda helped to create.

Elruin dropped to her knees, exhausted of strength. She didn't bring down the barrier, she didn't need to, all she had to do was weaken it enough.

.....

"Here's the most vulnerable spot," Cali said as she pointed on her map in the dirt. "Southeast corner. They don't have enough shielding shards, so the barrier's especially thin at this point. Also just so happens to be furthest from their barracks, so by the time they get men there, we can tunnel under the walls and come up the other side. We sacrifice the element of surprise, but there was never any chance of keeping surprise and getting through the wall. Near the north of the camp is our second best spot. We'll target both. Ell, you'll give the signal."

Elruin nodded. "I have an idea, too. We'll need as much water as we can get."

.....

Elruin dipped her hand into the bucket of crackling black energy, allowing her stored necromantic pool to return to her body. She had no way to know, but what she was doing would have killed most necromancers.

"Troll! It's a tr-!!" A sickening crunch ended the warning cry. Scratch's troll broke through less than a minute after the barrier was damaged, and punched its hand through the closest guard's faceguard.

Another soldier appeared in moments, propelled by superhuman speed he severed the troll's forearm with a single swing of his axe, then continued forward and sank into the troll's chest. A true strike which left the troll's heart bisected by steel.

As resilient as trolls are, even that might not have killed it, but then the attacker gripped the back of the blade for the killing move. "Ignition." One whispered word caused the innards of the troll zombie to erupt into flame.

In a twist of irony, an undead troll was in many ways weaker than a live one, as its natural regeneration was sacrificed. Against fire, the situation was reversed as the the bolstered toughness and strength of a walking corpse cared not about whether its organs had been reduced to ash. The woman with the ax did everything right to fight a troll. She did everything wrong to fight a zombie.

A clawed, burning talon lashed out, gripped the woman's hand, and the ax it held, then began to squeeze with enough strength to crush her armor, and then her bones. The other, severed, limb twitched around, grabbed her leg, and began crushing that as well. Metal folded, bone splintered, and blood pooled in the ruined pieces of armor.

She screamed, kicked out, shattered the troll's leg, and did not see the two goblins come out of the dirt with their spears. Nobody would ever realize it was her own brother's weapon that slid beneath the backplate of her armor and inflicted the wound that would kill her.

She bought time, however, for a dozen other armed men to arrive at the point of conflict. Armed with spears, the goblins were dangerous, but being undead they lacked the native goblinoid instincts and biology that made the creatures truly terrifying. Intelligence sacrificed for strength and toughness, useful in some situations, but being overrun was not the right circumstance.

Then they swallowed.

.....

"We'll give the goblins some of the spare weapons," Cali said. "I know, goblin bodies would be better suited as archers, but we didn't stock up on bows, and the goblins stopped making toxins when they died. Bit of a blessing in disguise, I bet they'll take the time to get anti-poison magic ready before they go out to fight goblins, only to find there's no poison to fear."

"Might I suggest something?" Lemia said. "I've been looking into the venomfire and its reactions. The way silmid use it, it explodes into a flammable powder, but if we, say, dropped a pellet in goblin toxins, we could get a pretty nasty explosion."

"Still facing the same problem of the poison being dried."

"Not inside their stomachs."

.....

The ball of necrotized flame exploded outward from the now-annihilated goblin corpses, capturing a total of nine people in their blast. For half, it was minor burns, for the other half it was enough heat to burn their unshielded eyes or lungs. They fell back, retreating from the explosion as those with healing magic found that their spells struggled against the wounds inflicted.

The troll, now the sole body remaining of this necrotic cluster, recovered in strength. Its bones forced themselves back into proper shape, and the severed limb pulled back into place, as if held by magnetism. The wounded, the blinded, they were easy prey.

It ignored the three closest, those dying on the ground from goblin-bone shrapnel which found itself in the open points of their armor.

"There's more!" A man shouted from another wall. "The goblins are coming this way, too! Dozens of them!"

A man shouted orders, then began to rush the troll while more men were sent toward the wall. He drove the beast back with a powerful blow of his guisarme, taking care to use the flat of the blade, instead of the edge that ran the risk of getting stuck in the monster.

A stream of necromantic energy caught him by surprise, numbing his limbs and for a moment blinding him. He shuddered, fell to his knees, then jumped to the side when another stream of power nearly struck him. "Necromancer on the wall!" he shouted at what few able-bodied men remained near him.

To the north, men began to gather on the wall, looking out into the fog. "Where are the goblins?" One of them demanded of the guard who'd called them.

"Right there, come closer!" The soldier shouted, pointing down into the fog. "There!"

The other soldier leaned over to get a better look. "Where? I don't s- aaah!" He screamed as he fell off the wall, and landed face first on the ground below. The twelve foot drop probably wouldn't kill him, which was better than Scratch's new puppet could claim when he was impaled by one of his own friends. Then the wall rumbled beneath them.

Scratch used his now-dead puppet to laugh. He hadn't had this much fun in centuries.

.....

"Once the ambush has started, Scratch will abandon his troll, find some soldier, and lure others onto the north wall, where Ketak, Lemia, and the rest of our goblins will be waiting. Scratch sends a signal, then the wall comes down. I'm sure he'll think of something obvious."

"Can-do, Sis." Scratch forced his troll to salute, as best it could given anatomical limitations.

"Let the goblins take lead, they do the fighting and the dying first, we can always get more later. Lemia, you need to spot their champions, then you and Ketak take them down."

"Where will you be?" Ketak asked.

"On the other wall, with Elruin." Cali said. "What looks at first to be the distraction will instead be the first wave of our pincer attack."

.....

A little girl began to sing.

On the northern side of the camp, the wall rumbled and collapsed, claiming six more lives. Six more goblins, also already dead, rushed over the collapsed segment and savaged those who by luck or skill survived the falling stone.

A burst of lighting lashed out, catching all the goblins and several bandits in brain-destroying electrical death. All fell, but the goblins rose again. Without a nervous system, without a brain, only the heat of the lightning had any effect on them. It was not enough.

Moments later, another lightning bolt shot back over the wall, catching the mage. He was tougher than most lightning mages, but he was still amongst the most fragile castes of magic wielder. He stumbled back, used a windstorm to force the goblins away from him. Then he fell to the ground, gasping for breath as he drew on his sarite to replenish his strength so that he might escape.

His eyes widened in terror when Ketak walked through his windstorm. Like most dwarves, she stood under four feet tall and weighed over five hundred pounds, it was rare to find a wind that would so much as slow her down. He brought his hand up, to cast another spell. A single swipe from hers left nothing but cauterized stumps where his fingers once sat.

"Good news, of sorts," she said. "Surrender, and you li'e. Or 'ight and die. Your choice, but i' I were you, I'd choose to die."

The magic started to collapse around them, as the mage made his choice. He rolled onto his stomach, keeping his head down while the goblins ran around him into the compound seeking more bandits.

"You're a bra'e man, or a 'oolish one," Ketak muttered. "I suppose 'ere is no di'erence, when it comes to humans."

On the other side of the fort, the man with the guisarme jumped up to the wall to face the necromancer. "A child?" He smirked. "Or something that's meant to look like a child, at any rate."

Elruin did not stop singing, for she could not. There were too many dead, too many who would come back soon. The storm of death and taint continued to grow with every passing second, far beyond the pit Scratch had created.

The man twirled his weapon behind him, striking the second troll, the one that Elruin maintained control over. In that moment of vulnerability, a dagger tainted with goblin venom struck from behind. The man ducked under, which resulted in a troll with a dagger wedged in its forehead. A minor inconvenience at worst for the corpse.

Now began the real offensive, as Calenda began her all-out offensive with the troll as her flanking partner. He had to face her down, as she had speed and strength to match his own, while treating the troll as a secondary threat. Between the two he had no hope of approaching the child necromancer. They kept moving, both fighting defensively while the troll lost bodypart after bodypart in the clash.

Soon, it came down to the two of them. He was panting, while Calenda remained in peak form, despite having consumed much of her spare strength. Still, when it came to skill and strength, he had her beat. Were this battle to continue, she would lose.

Pity, then, that she was already dead. Elruin sang, and she knew it was time. She allowed herself to falter, to make a minor mistake that resulted in the guisarme wedged deep in her chest.

She just grabbed hold of the shaft. She wanted to issue a taunt, but the metal had blocked her wind pipe. Instead, she just smiled as a stream of necromantic power struck her from behind, and passed through her into him.

He didn't have time to look surprised, before he fell dead.

Calenda pulled the weapon out of her. Still unable to speak, she gave it a couple exploratory swings. She knew what share of the treasure she'd be keeping for herself.

Elruin continued to sing, chaining the necromantic storm to her will one section at a time. She fed half of it into Calenda, used the power to stitch her Elder Sister back together even as she jumped into the fray of facing the remaining bandits. There was little left as the battle went, but she needed desperately to scrub the necromantic taint before it became a threat to Lemia, Ketak, and the others she knew weren't fighting.

They soon walked empty streets. Half of Elruin's dollies had been destroyed, as well as Scratch's troll puppet.

"They have puppies?" Elruin spotted the cage first, thanks to her lifesight. She approached the three slender pups that stood up to her hip. Their large fox-like ears folded down, as they hid in the back of their cage. They whimpered and yipped at one another, hiding away from the necromancer.

"Wanna bet this is why the morks were so interested in our help," Scratch said. He was still without a puppet, but in truth he preferred to roam free than be stuck in a corpse. "I'd eat my own ass if these ain't their pups."

"Why would the bad men want mork puppies?" Elruin asked. As frightened as they were, the puppies were adorable. She wanted to give them all hugs.

"Slaves," Cali said. "It's all sorts of criminal, but if you get them young, morks make for useful guard animals. Far stronger and smarter than any normal dog, they can even serve as war mounts. There's quite a price on the black market for intelligent beasts."

"Why didn't they tell us?" Elruin inched closer to the cage. "We won't hurt you." The pups pressed further back into the cage.

"Because then we'd know we had them over the barrel," Scratch said. "We could have negotiated for better terms, perhaps demanded they help fight the bandits with us. By pretending they were only tangentially interested, they got a better deal outta us that they might otherwise."

Lemia ran out of the larger building. "Cali! Elruin!" She stopped, gasping for breath. "We have a problem. They have captives, some are in bad shape." She gave a pointed look at Scratch. "Ell, you need to stay out here and hide your dollies where nobody will be able to see them. Cali, we need your medical knowledge."

This was when Cali learned her dead stomach could still feel queasy. "Right, I'm coming. Ell, stay out here, and leave the mork pups alone. They've been traumatized, and we should leave them until their parents arrived."

Soon, howls began at the walls, followed by excited, desperate yipping from within the cages.

"Speak of the coyote devil," Scratch said. "I'll handle our employers, don't worry, I speak their language better than you humans do. I'll keep things vague without making any promises, but right now we're not in a good position to double-cross them, so I suggest barter."

"We'll meet up in ten to discuss our situation. Lemia, could you take stock of the storage barn? I was about to, but..."

"Sure, you've got the worse job, anyway."

Some time later, they all returned from their respective tasks. Lemia and Ketak kept close to Calenda, so they could whisper to one another outside of Elruin's hearing. "Physically, they'll recover," she whispered to the pair. "The mental scars, I can't begin to guess. And... I didn't have the heart to tell them, but two of them are pregnant."

Lemia closed her eyes, then nodded. She'd feared as much, given the condition she'd found them in. "Let's take inventory, then." She spoke loud enough for the other two members of their team to hear. "We got six more donkeys and three more carts, enough food to last for a while, and more than enough leather for our little side project."

"I lost most of my dollies," Elruin said. "Only two goblins survived. But I got four more dollies to replace them, and Mister Clackybones the Second!"

"Enough weaponry to outfit a small army," Ketak added. "Twenty bows, spears and arming swords, hundreds of arrows, and basic chain or gambesons enough to fully armor fifty people, and enough coin to pay them all for a month. Though it seems they were paid more in alcohol than coin, there are more barrels in storage than we could hope to haul in just four carts. This was not a small operation. Oh, and one living prisoner, who I buried with our remaining goblin 'dollies'. I trust you want to talk to him."

"Four men, seven women," Cali delivered the least happy news. "From what I could gather, they're the remaining prisoners from three separate merchant caravans, being kept until they could be sold for ransom." She left out the other reasons. "Also a great deal of sarite. Most interesting is the shielding sarite on the walls. That stuff is hard to come by, and we can use it to hide ourselves while transporting the prisoners."

"Not back to human lands, though," Scratch said. "They wanna go that direction, they gotta go on their own, because we can't afford to let witnesses survive. Oh, and last but not least, we got three mork pups with their parents eager to get them back. Things will get violent if we say no, and I can't promise they won't get violent if we open the gates."

=====

My voters made the entire plan you saw here. It was a good one.

Coyote pups actually are adorable. Leaner than (most) dog or wolf puppies, and they got giant fox ears. Very hugable.

Elruin finally gets a new Mister Clackybones. It's been a while. May this one "live" longer than the last.

 

Suggested Listening

Calenda felt ambivalent about the combination of lack of fatigue and the desire to express frustration via bodily functions which no longer came natural to her. She made herself sigh, but found it disappointed her. Weeks ago, she would have found some alone time to work out or take a nap, but those no longer offered the reprieve they once did, either.

"Ell, pile the destroyed zombies and tainted corpses you can't control in the far corner. Then have your controlled dead help take corpses up to the gate. Lemia, would you please go help the captives, use our Silmid cover names, and imply we have more members on our team without actually saying who they are." She smiled as a deliciously evil thought came to mind. "And, while you're at it, mention an Inquisitor. Drop the word 'dominator'."

"A what?"

"Mind control mage. Nobody likes to talk about them, but they do exist." Lemia started walking to the gate. "Ell, come with me while your 'dolls' do all the work. Have the goblins grab some bows and meet us at the gate."

Calenda and Elruin took position atop the wall, with their pair of goblins at the gate and a small group of the dead behind them. Scratch followed, for lack of anything better to do and an interest in playing the role of political foil.

"There they are." "The leaders." "We made a bargain." "Knew humans couldn't be trusted." "Were we fools?" "So disappointing." Thanks to the power of the sarite barrier, damaged though it was, the morks had to communicate via standard vocalization, rather than the magic they had used before. As such, the seven of them could be seen from above.

They moved as one, circling around each other and only speaking when their mouths were hidden from view, so they could retain the illusion that all and none were speaking. As tricks went, it was no less disturbing than when they were using the forests to hide themselves, but Elruin took comfort in knowing they were on the safe side of the magical wall.

Morks chastising her about honesty? "But I recall no agreement one way or the other, when it comes to your puppies." From an objective standpoint, an outside observer would probably take the morks' side in this scenario. They were, after all, seeking to get their children back, while she was an undead abomination made even more horrifying by her ability to circumvent many of the so-called 'absolute facts' about the undead. "That said, we have no interest in keeping your children away from you."

"Yet you stand there." "On the wall." "With our children." "We hear their cries." "Bandits slain." "We smell the blood."

"Because we found human captives here as well. We can't open the gates, until we get a promise from you. That said, I think we can make a new deal that benefits us both. But first an oath that so long as you're willing to leave in peace, we'll return your offspring. The rest, is us offering a little more in exchange for an arrangement I think will benefit us both."

"We're listening." "Speak your plan." "But give us our children." "And the other two." "Right, we heard only three." "Should be five." "Where are they?"

Cali looked over her shoulder into the camp. "We haven't seen any others. They must have been taken elsewhere." She hesitated to admit they took one alive, but at this point it wasn't much of a secret. "I'll be certain to ask our prisoner about it."

"Good." "Make him suffer." "Make him scream." "Give him to us alive."

"They're lying," Scratch whispered in her ear. "They know there's only three pups, they're trying to play on your sympathies."

"No promises." She had wondered, herself, but her form of Truthsaying didn't work well on anything other than humans. "He knows a great deal that I want to know." More to the point, he knew too much about the strategies used in the assault. Every one of their team earned the death sentence twenty times over this day, especially Elruin. The irony was that at this point she and Scratch would be considered the least guilty of the team, for they were already dead and thus their actions were the necromancer's fault.

Soon, the gates opened, and two morks came through. Flanked by four armored zombies on either side of the gate, the pair of morks kept looking around in all directions, no doubt sizing up the defenses within the fort. There was no reliable method to determine how powerful beings were by looking at them, even with magical senses, but the piles of dead sent their own message.

The rushed to the cage, the moment they caught sight of the pups, yipping and growling in their own language, unintelligible to human ears.

Cali moved to open the cage, but the larger mork turned his head and bit down on the metal bars of the cage. With some effort and twisting, the metal of the cage warped and snapped out of their base, providing space for the pups, already larger than most adult dogs, to go free. Elruin wanted to give the fuzzy creatures hugs, but knew she had to settle for watching.

Still alert, the pair of morks took to either side of their young, and guided them to the exit. Soon, they walked out, and the undead soldiers marched out behind them, taking position on the other side of the gate alongside the newly minted Mister Clackybones II. Elruin sang her corpses to the nearest patch of forest, well out of sight.

"Okay, I organized the survivors as best I could," Lemia said. "One of the women was the daughter of a caravan leader, closest thing we've got to someone who knows what they're doing. Ketak's drafted the men, putting them in armor. They don't seem to realize she's a woman, and it'll be easier for all of us if they don't find out. She says none of them are worth a damn in a fight, but as long as they look like soldiers, we'll be fine."

"It's something," Calenda said. "The morks are happy enough, for now. I'll be doing more negotiations once they've talked to their children, made certain we did nothing to harm them.

"Still going through with feeding them the corpses?"

"Don't see what other option we have," Cali said. "We can't take the corpses with us, we barely have carts enough for the living, and no matter what direction we head, it's going to take a week to get this many ordinary people to any form of civilization. More if there are any delays, and with civilians there are always delays."

"We can get there faster on Mister Clackybones the Second," Elruin said. She knew little or nothing about politics or caravans, but she knew her new warhorse could run much faster than the donkeys and their wagons. "He can outrun anything in the wilderness."

"Ell, I'm pretty sure that your new 'horsey' is a girl," Lemia said. "I mean, I think it is, I'm not an expert on horses, but it's shorter than a male should be."

"No, you're right," Cali said. "I saw her when she still had some flesh attached, definitely a female."

"Okay, we can still take her, right?" Elruin accepted the wisdom of her adult companions without hesitation. "Mister Clackybones says she'll run as fast as she can for me, I bet I can get to Sonhome by nightfall. Then we can bury her when we get close to the city, like I did Mister Clackybones the First."

Cali smiled at the little girl who failed to understand their point entirely, and decided not to address the idea that the mindless horse could say anything. When it came to Elruin, this wasn't too unusual. "It is true, she can outrun anything I've ever seen. I don't want to risk you out there alone."

"You can come with me!" Ell said. "Mister Clackybones is strong enough to carry both of us."

"Ell, before we do that, we all need to take a night to recover," Lemia said. She held up a small bag with a sarite crystal, one too dangerous for any of them to use thanks to the corruption leaking from it. It was a potent shard, to be sure, but its ability to bolster alertness, stealth, and spying magic came at the price of driving the user mad with paranoia. "Do me a huge favor and set up the alchemy equipment. We can use this to make Cali's weapon, and perhaps a gift for Mister Clackybones, too, so we'll need you to charge the water."

"Okay!" Elruin marched toward their temporary camp.

"Your adoptive sister is a helpful one, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she's a good kid." Cali watched Elruin walk away. She worried about the girl who had gone through so much, then imprinted on her so thoroughly. She couldn't imagine the horrors that might have been if someone less disciplined had provided a sense of family to the necromancer, and all the dangers which that entailed. "I worry about her."

"Don't worry," Lemia said. "We'll stop Claron before he touches her."

"Right." At the moment, Claron wasn't the danger Cali was worried about. "I'm going to go back to negotiation, maybe get our cart inside before the morks eat our donkeys. Keep an eye on 'Rin' while I'm away."

"So now I'm a babysitter?" Lemia smirked. "I guess it's an upgrade, since with you gone that means she's your heir, right?"

Cali made herself chuckle, to entertain the humor. "Not quite. You see, I never got married or had children, which means I had no claim to hand down. Any title she may have been able to claim died with me."

"Oh, well, then if all of this falls through I still got my hair dresser career on the side. Speaking of, you need a touch-up." Lemia reached out, and touched Cali's black hair. With a single brush of her fingers, the black came off on Lemia's fingers. "When Elruin blasted you, it cooked the dyes. Would have cooked everything else, too."

"When I get back, then," Cali said. A quick burst of strength took her to the top of the fortress wall, and then she hopped over to the other side. With her new weapon and armor, she felt confident enough that she could escape from the morks while the other undead soldiers helped fight them off. Besides, she could threaten that Elruin would use her magic to render all the food inedible and turn their dead against them. They didn't know the limits of her necromancy.

"Making friends, I see," Scratch slipped out of his hiding place in the soil.

"Confirming for myself something I think you've known for some time," Lemia crossed her arms and looked down at the ghostly figure. "I just don't get it."

"If you're fishing for explanations, I'm afraid I've got none to offer."

"I meant, I don't get why I'm the one you don't trust," Lemia said. "You met Ketak for less than a full minute, and then you were all too eager to reveal yourself and show off your art project to her. Is it because you think she's hot? Were you a dwarf when you were alive?"

"If you must know, it's because she's a fanatic," Scratch said. "We all are. We have goals so important that we will sacrifice our lives, and our afterlives, if that's what it takes. I understand Calenda, who chose to die rather than accept slavery no matter how gilded her chains would be. Ketak's revenge, too, I know it, and I know how to harness it. You're the anomaly, because you value nothing higher than your own survival. That makes you the weak link."

"Which makes them ever-so-easy to manipulate, is what you're implying. We both know that's bullshit, fanatics can't be controlled for long." Lemia kept watching the ghost for some tell, aside that he stopped joking whenever she got close to anything important. "I notice you left one name out when discussing motives."

"And I shall continue infuriating you with lack of information about me until the day you die."

"Not you, you've proven your 'fanaticism', not that I consider it a reason to trust you." Lemia turned to follow Elruin's wake. "I was thinking of Elruin. That girl is many things, but fanatic she is not. Which means you don't think her motives matter, for reasons I've yet to decipher."

"Is that what you're hung up on? Elruin doesn't need the same motivations for me to trust her. She's a necromancer, that's all that I require."

"I noticed, and one day, I'll figure out why." Scratch was wrong about her, she had goals beyond survival. What she wanted, more than anything in this or any other world, was answers. One day, she would have them. For now, she needed to help the key to those answers build a present for her sister.


=====

Any chapter with Scratch is a good chapter.

Especially the ones where he interacts with Lemia. The pair of them are just plain fun together.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin stifled a yawn despite her excitement; she had spent half the night working with Lemia, and only had a few hours of sleep. "These are yours!" She held out the pair of ebon-black gloves, oblivious to the wisps of black mist trying to burn away her life energies.

"Fingerless gloves?" Calenda lifted the gloves with her fingertips; despite being dead for the last couple weeks, she still had not overcome her aversion to obvious necromantic energy like that which bled off of these. The black smoke worked its way across her arms like ephemeral leeches, but instead of stripping her of strength, they melted into her skin and began a slow restoration of her power. "These seem... a lot stronger than I was expecting."

"Thank you!" Elruin said with her best smile. "I worked my very hardest on them!"

"We may have cheated a little," Lemia said. "Or a lot, depending on who you ask. Normal magic equipment has more failsafes to protect from magic than actual magic. Nobody wants a flaming sword that melts the hand of the guy holding it, or a charm that boosts the strength of your enemies as well as yourself, or bleeds magic into the environment because it lacks a reservoir. We included none of those failsafes. You've got an artifact which only exists to slowly generate necromantic energy, with no attempt to control or contain the power. Your body does that for us."

"Breaking all the rules." Cali slide her fingers into her new gloves, and it felt incredible. Black lightning jumped from her fingertips down her wrist as she balled her hand into a fist. It would take some time to replenish her magic reserves, but her reserves would be replenished. "This can't be legal."

"You have no idea," Lemia muttered. "If Professor Abrax heard I made a device like that one, she'd petition to delay my execution long enough to retroactively fail me out of every class I've ever taken, then have me pressed with my own books and research papers."

"You like them, right?" Elruin stepped between the adults and their conversation.

Cali reached out, and rubbed Elruin's head. Now that the excess magic had been absorbed into her, the gloves took on the dark brown coloration of worked leather hide. "Almost as good as a constant hug from my favorite little sister."

"You're welcome." Elruin gave Cali a hug anyway, to make everything that much better.

"I better get back in the gates," Lemia said. "You'll have to get 'Mister' Clackybones' saddle on, yourselves. I sized it, but I can't touch that leather now that it's been enchanted. We should be out in half an hour."

Cali laughed. "So, see you in an hour?"

They parted ways, leaving Lemia to the impossible task of herding civilians while Cali and Elruin went through the equally impossible task of weaving leather straps through a skeleton in order to keep a saddle in position on an animal lacking skin and flesh. Only after the saddle was attached did its effect become known, as black ink spread outward around the horse, cloaking the creature in darkness.

Calenda gave the effect a critical eye. "Hmm, this almost works. Maybe with some effort and more leather, we could disguise it entirely." Where the canopy did best at blocking the sun, the effect was a beast shrouded such that it was impossible to identify as a horse at all, let alone one lacking flesh and blood. Where the sun broke through, darkness failed, leaving yellowed bone clear to the human eye.

Elruin hummed a couple quick notes, which prompted the skeletal steed to its knees, and thus Elruin took her place on the saddle. "Good girl." The necromancer stroked the bones of its neck, as if imagining the horse had a mane.

"Honestly, I never had much use for horses," Cali said as she took her place behind Elruin on the saddle. "They never had much use for me, either. Who knew that dying would broaden my outlook on life so much?"

"Beats the alternative." Scratch walked out of the ground diagonally, as if ascending from a basement. "But I'd wait another century or two before I started singing its praises."

"I thought the plan was for you to go with Lemia's group."

"And I changed that plan," Scratch said. "Couple of those captives kept looking in my direction even when they shouldn't be able to see me. I doubt it's anything, but you don't get to retirement age by being by being foolhardy. 'Sides, how could I miss on the joy of watching our young mistress take her first steps into becoming a general, complete with an army at her back? Speaking of, you're about to miss the procession."

Clackybones rose to its feet, then trotted near the edge of the forest, where the gates were opened and the procession of seven carts left the safety of the walls for their trip to Sonhome.

Nearby, the morks left the edge of the wilderness and watched the wagons. Shouting and pointing at the giant beasts came from the caravan, only to quiet when each and every mork knelt on their forelimbs and tilted their heads down as if to bow as the procession went by.

Scratch rubbed his nonexistent hands together. "That'll get 'em talking 'til the day they die and maybe beyond. Gotta say, that 'dominator' lie was absolutely devious, it almost makes this 'saving people' nonsense worth the headache."

As soon as the wagons disappeared into the forest, the morks rushed the abandoned fortress, intent on claiming their prize of not-quite-fresh human meat, and whatever else they might scavenge.

"Now for the second dumbest part of the plan," Scratch said. He jumped off his perch on Clackybones' shoulder, then floated through the greatly diminished shielding.

Elruin sang in earnest, and her army began to move. Seven armored soldiers, stronger than they had been in life and incapable of defying their orders, began to march on the fort's opened gates. They stopped at the entrance, an honor guard for Elruin and Calenda. Four of the skeletons walked off in sets of two, heading for the last remaining sarite crystals on the walls. Meanwhile the largest of the morks, a grizzled and scarred veteran, stood face to face with the procession.

"Our deal is satisfactory?" He spoke without the echo-trickery his kind so preferred.

"More than," Cali said. "We will return as we can, but expect this place to attract monsters within hours of our leaving. It will all but certainly attract scouts from the human lands, who may or may not work for a man named Lord Enge, within the week. Make contact, learn what they seek, feel free to lie to them and take whatever bribes they offer. We'll make contact later as we are able, with a plan and greater bribe than theirs."

"It has been... profitable... working with you." The grizzled mork turned and returned to the rest of his pack, and their feasting upon the piles of dead.

The zombies returned carrying the four remaining shielding sarite crystals that hid the fortress and its human magical essence from the world. Soon the fortress would be overrun by the denizens of the forest, investigating the magical essence that attracted the real threats to human settlements. Such a small location wouldn't draw in the true monsters like dragons, but even a pair of chimera would be a threat too great for Claron and his people to ignore.

Knowing what Scratch had informed them of, that the essence of the dead had a habit of 'sticking' to the living, Cali considered the possibility that the monsters sought fragments of human souls to augment their own strength. There weren't many creatures with natural intelligence in the world, and all of them attracted ceaseless hordes of monster assaults. Humans, silmid, and some reptilians used sarite shielding to hide, while goblins used their toxins and prodigious reproductive speed to drive off attackers, but all natural sapient life were at constant war with nature.

She tensed her fist again, as if to test Scratch's theories. It was true, she felt notably stronger after the battles they'd fought, and she was becoming convinced that it was more than just Elruin's magic that caused it. Elruin was also stronger, and Lemia had progressed from a fragile waif to someone who could be a good soldier with some training.

"What are you thinking about?" Elruin asked.

"What Scratch said earlier, about us getting stronger thanks to all the things we've had to kill," Cali said. "I didn't want to admit it at first, but I think it's true."

Elruin thought for a moment, but couldn't decide why it was so important to Cali. "Why are you sad?"

Cali looked back at the fortress, and the small army of soldiers which followed in the wispy smoke of Clackybones' wake. "I always knew the world was violent and unforgiving, but I accepted that as the nature of life. Now, I learn that it's more than that, that nature is no different than man, slaughtering one another for power. We live in a world ruled by death."

Scratch began to cackle with a cruel, bitter laughter.

"Is something I said funny to you, ghost?" She hadn't expected Scratch to care about her existential crisis, but he could have kept quiet. "I'm having a moment with Elruin, thank you."

"Nothing funny about it at all," Scratch said. "In fact, I'd say it's the least amusing joke ever spoken by human lips, and that's saying a lot. Some day, I may even let you in on it."

Suggested Listening

The days of travel had been long, frustratingly so for the dead army which was forced to stay apart from the humans they protected. It seemed like half the day, every day, was wasted on the biological annoyances of humanity which were little or no trouble for the army of corpses. Elruin, yes, still needed rest and food, but she could sleep in the saddle while Cali carried her, if needed. Still, they kept their distance, made a week of a journey that needed take them only a few days.

During one of their many needless breaks, Scratch took a rare moment to get serious. "Hey, Dark Queen of Dollies and Death, what are you going to do? Later, after we put Claron on the proper side of the great divide?"

Elruin didn't so much as hesitate. "Cali and I go back home and live happily ever after, like both of the fairy tales where the children don't get eaten."

"That's sweet of you, Ell, but I don't have a home anymore," Cali said. "Don't feel sad, though, I like it better this way. Free."

"Oh," Elruin stopped and put more thought into the question. "Then I want a nice big farm with strong walls that won't fall over in the rain. Where we can live happily ever after, and my dollies can do the work and make lots of crops so we can feed everyone and make money and have a nice house with a big library and Lemia can be there, too, with an alchemy lab and everyone will be happy forever."

"All of your power, and that's all you want?" Scratch pretended to lean against a tree. "You could be a queen, with time a goddess, and you'd rather be a farm girl?"

"Uh huh." Elruin laid head down on Cali's lap. "Queens have to deal with nasty people like Claron and do all sorts of boring things. I want a nice farm and all the books to read. And a bed made of stuffed animals."

Cali rested a hand on the girl's head. "It's a lovely dream, Ell. I'll do everything to make it happen."


=====

Elruin, what is best in life?

To play with dollies. See them risen before you and hear them work in your fields.

...

What?

Sorry this was so damn late. Today was not kind to this old duck.

I actually took the time to look up the origins of fingerless gloves, to make sure they weren't too historically strange. Turns out, ancient Greeks had them. That's "historical" enough for my purposes.

Pressing is a real world torture/execution method. It's pretty damn horrific, like most medieval era executions. Usually involves rocks, but my college experience leads me to believe books would work equally well.

Mark this chapter in your bookmarks, folks. I have a habit of making stories where a lot of the subtleties will be missed on your first read-through. This chapter more than just about anything else I've ever written will epitomize that practice.

And I've been both busy and under the weather, so I'm taking tomorrow off as a break and cleanup day. Basically going through, fixing up typos, and doing general maintenance. Plus some crap around the house that needs doing. The odds of you getting a chapter are exceedingly low.