Midara: Requiem [High Fantasy Necromancer fun]

Suggested Listening

Click-Hiss-Click listened to the chorus, the shared language of the goblins. Shapes formed in her mind, a map of the sights her southern forces saw of the tallskin caravan. Soon, she saw a full map, one which she could travel in three dimensions through with her imagination, as if she were there in person and able to fly.

She gazed upon the tallskins, some clad in the metals they stole from the earth, just as they had stole that earth from her kind. She saw a scalethief with them. Perhaps none epitomized the nature of the Usurpers as the hideous mammals which pretended to be as reptiles, stolen scales made from the stolen metals of the stolen earth.

Her own mother once told her no other species possessed their situational awareness, nor the mental capacity to understand the experience. This was proof enough of their superiority over the Usurpers who lacked such minor mental talents.

The traitorous voice in the back of her head asked the question she had never dared voice, never admitted to herself: If they are so inferior, why do they possess grand cities while the goblins hide in caves?

She squashed that traitorous, heretical, thought with the practice of long decades, and converted it to further rage. For the answer was simple: the mammals stole their accomplishments from the goblins and other reptilians. All which the mammals possessed was stolen from the rightful masters of this world, or stolen from the world itself. Their weapons, their armors, their magics, all tools stolen from nature for they were too weak to fight on their own. Liars, thieves, traitors, Usurpers.

She called ahead, sent the message along the chain of goblins which monitored the forest for foes, alerted her children to the opportunity for war. Dozens would die, such was always the cost of their conflicts, and in the coming weeks she and her daughters would breed constantly to replenish the lost. She placed her hand on her own gravid stomach. Her first clutch would be born in a matter of hours.

Shouts of alarm and fear echoed back from the scouts circling around to harass the caravan into rushing unprepared into their hobgoblin ambush.Those that are not living follow behind. She fell into the mapping message of her children and grandchildren, witnessed the unnatural walk of dead tallskins. Then she recognized the source of the abominations, a tallskin of midnight hair and moonlight skin which rode atop a horse made of nothing but bone and black mist.

"It is the Tainted One! It returns with more Evil than before! We can destroy it! Give us our orders, Mother!" Her children shouted through their ultrasonic language, their wills joined. They thought and felt as one."

Almost all of them did, anyhow. "Back away!" She sent out her orders, as bile choked in her throat for her betrayal of her offspring and their holy crusade.

"But, Mother! The abominations are worse even than mammals." The voice of Hiss-Spit-Click, the most dutiful of her daughters. "And mammals that ally with abomination are the most profane of all things!"

Click-Hiss-Click trembled, for she knew her daughter was correct. Mammals, Usurpers though they are, were designed to exist within the world. Abominations were a blight born of mad gods, a pollution born in the diseased flesh of their wounded world. They should not be, should never have been. "No, do not act with haste."

"No! This is the one that slew so many of our brave brothers, that turned us against our own, that murdered our sisters! Look, the Tainted One still keeps two of our sisters trapped in unholy slavery!" The songs rendered echoes of two of her grandchildren, their bodies desecrated by undeath and forced to carry tallskin weapons, no doubt to battle against their own still-living family.

Her horde cried out to her, for her blessings to fall upon the abominations, to sacrifice themselves in the Most Holy Duty of destroying the tallskins and their abomination slaves. She could not give the order, however. "The Black Spirit was untouchable. It will spread its taint as it did before!" Their greatest shamans were not enough to cleanse the land last time, and it looked to be stronger now than before.

"Then we must fight all the harder to atone for our failure! Slay the Tainted One! Destroy the necromancer before it grows too strong for us to stop!"

"They march upon the scalethieves' land. Let them destroy one another." Her body shook with rage and disappointment as she lied to her family, her gods, her duty, and herself. She knew the scalethieves would not turn upon the Tainted One, for they supported its evil.

To atone for her failings, Click-Hiss-Click hugged herself, dug her own claws into the meat of her shoulders, and flensed herself. As fast as her flesh stitched itself back together, she dragged her claws through it yet again. She wailed in the forests, screeching as she both hugged and mutilated herself in the name of futile rage.

Suggested Listening

Once in dwarven lands, Elruin's skeletons moved around and ahead of the caravan in the night, to dissuade the goblins. She would never know how effective her ploy had been, as the dead took position to protect the living child as if planets orbiting a star.

Calenda took a stance, facing the Elruin. "So, up for a little more training?" It was to Elruin's benefit as well as her own to teach the girl how to defend herself in direct combat.

"Okay." Now that she'd had some training in school, and experienced the brutality of war for herself, Elruin understood the necessity in learning to fight to protect herself. She sang to her magic, focusing all her strength into her defensive magic.

Cali bolted forward, avoided Elruin's clumsy slash of her stiletto, then struck outward at the girl's face. She stopped at the last second, before she broke Elruin's nose. Even if she was inclined to give the girl a repeat of her own childhood, she didn't have the healing magic to make it work. "You need to learn to move," she said. "I know, your nature is in part that of an earth mage, but time mages don't have the same resilience. If you don't learn to evade attacks, you'll be picked apart by fighters like me or annihilated by a fire mage."

"Sorry, Sis, I got a better theory: kill everything that looks at you, before it has a chance to look at you," Scratch said. "They call that 'preemptive defense'. The best kind of defense."

"You remind me of my family."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"It wasn't a sincere thank you, either," Scratch said. "You ladies have fun, but not too much fun. I've gotta go next door and help the college girl study for her test again. Oh, and if you wanna encourage Elruin to get stronger, have her try casting spells on you instead of against you. I've seen what a time mage can do with the walking dead. The effects are hilariously violent. But, well, test it on the puppets first. Wouldn't want to break a doll like you."

Calenda waited until she felt certain Scratch was out of earshot before she spoke, just to avoid admitting that the ghost had a point. "So, do you think you could use your magic to augment the dead?"

"Maybe?" Elruin's purple eyes turned black. "Show me how you do it. Slowly."

"Alright, it's been some time since I got back to basics." Calenda took a slow but unnecessary breath, one of many exercises that no longer mattered for her but were ingrained in her habits. A slow draw of power was safer and more efficient than rapid burst power, but speed trumped power in combat more often than not. She started to revisit that theory, now that her body was no longer living. Maintaining maximum strength would rip living muscle to shreds, but as life conspired to remind her, she was no longer a member of the club.

For now, she went through her warm-up routine, shifting from footstep to footstep and hand position to hand position while Elruin watched her routine with rapt attention.

Elruin began to hum, and as she did, the army of dead men began to emulate Cali's motion both physical and magical. Calenda continued to move, Elruin kept the corpses moving as well. Cali heard them, felt them, and then she touched the strings that made them move. Most were born of Scratch's corruption, outside her control, but one of them was her own victim, sacrificed on the alter of the vampiric shard she had to rely upon before getting her gloves. She tugged at those strings.

Elruin changed her song, relinquished control to Calenda, who now watched herself through the dead man's eyes. "This is going to take some getting used to," Cali said through two sets of mouths. Or tried to, at any rate; the zombie's vocal chords were not as well preserved as her own. "I... think... I can... use this." Cali's voice was halting as she sorted out which body was her, and which was the enslaved corpse.

She pushed her energy into the body, used it to follow her own dance, then without fear of her own wellbeing, she began pushing the body past what had been her breaking point while alive. She felt her real body grow weaker as she burned through reserves. "How's this look, Ell?"

"It's beautiful," Elruin said. Then she sang in earnest, amplified the song within the corpse, and began to adapt her Delirium and Empowerment magic to fit the structures she witnessed. She constructed a new variant, one which did not need a mind to enrage so long as it possessed a magical structure she understood, as with the undead.

"Wait! Too much!" Calenda shuddered as the anger in the magic started to wash back into her. "I will not be controlled!" She forced the body to punch a nearby boulder with all the strength she could muster. The zombie shattered its own arm, splintering every bone from fingers to elbow in addition to numerous other broken bones in the shoulders and ribs from the velocity and power of the force. The stone itself withstood the blow with numerous cracks, but otherwise in one piece.

"Sorry!" Elruin rushed to her sister. "Are you hurt?" In the background, the zombie collapsed to the ground, its dead flesh destroyed by the overwhelming magical energy which had been pushed into it.

"I'm fine!" Cali brought her hand up to her head. "I'm fine, really, sorry for yelling. After going so long with my emotions muted, it caught me off guard. But maybe we should call it a night?"

"Okay," Elruin offered a timid smile. "Sorry."

Cali smiled back, then wrapped an arm around Elruin. "Don't be, this is going to be incredible next fight we get into. I should apologize for breaking your dolly, now off to bed with you. I think we've had enough excitement tonight."

Suggested Listening

Cali and Elruin were last to enter the city, long after the others so that they weren't seen as part of the group with the refugees. The extra secrecy probably wasn't necessary, since it would take time for the former captives to find a means to return to Engeval territory, but the more steps they could take to obscure their actions from Claron, the safer they felt.

As soon as they entered the city, Lemia found them. "In spite of my earlier objections, I did what we agreed and gave all the money we took off the bandits to the refugees. Every coin. Go ahead, Truthsay me."

"You did a good thing." Elruin gave Lemia a hug to make her feel better since she lost the vote. "We gave the money back to the people it was stolen from." Not quite accurate, but as close as they were going to get under the circumstances.

"I guess so. I just wanted to get something out of bandits trying to kill me besides the warm fuzzies, y'know?" Lemia gave Elruin a return hug. "Besides your new toys, of course."

"Oh, we got quite a bit more than that," Cali said. "Shielding sarite is expensive stuff. More importantly, with that much of it, we can use it to hide us from just about anything. Monsters won't detect us, espers will overlook us, and anything short of a minor god will be unable to find us with magic. Notice how nothing attacked us on our way back? Our lives in the wilderness are a thousand times easier, as long as we don't have too many people with us."

"How many is too many?" Lemia knew about shielding sarite, but she hadn't realized it could be used when not on a wall. "It can't work as well as it does when stationary, can it?"

"No, it's not as good as on the walls. I'd say we can hide about thirty sapient beings. Animals and other things follow different rules, but are usually less visible than people. A group our size will be invisible."

"Good to know." Lemia still have been happier to keep the money and let the refugees have the excess carts and other supplies, but the promise of fewer monster attacks was worth the risks they took in the siege. "So, did Scratch tell you I found a nearby ruin I think is full of treasure?"

"He also mentioned one that might have a weapon we can use on Claron," Cali countered.

"He has no idea, he just said it was once a home of scary magic, refused to elaborate at all. Unless he told you something he refused to tell me?" Lemia waited a moment to see if Calenda had more information to provide. "I found what must have been a front line fortress against the desert invaders. It has to be full of magic weapons, and defenses that could hold up against a full magic beast siege. If we take it, we'll have a permanent base of operations."

"If any of it still works," Cali said. "If the centaurs didn't take it with them when they abandoned the place or died. If looters didn't steal everything of value before our grandparents were born. There are too many unknowns."

"Still better odds than this 'well of void magic' that Scratch says he can't explain or predict but is certain must still be there."

A pair of silmid interrupted the conversation. This pair wore the robe uniforms that were the only clothes the girls had seen any silmid wear. "You are Esra, correct? Our council needs to speak wi' you."

Cali sighed. "Take Rin to a bath, see about shopping, I'll meet back up with you-"

"Our apologies, priestess, but we were told to bring you and your companions. It is a matter o' urgency."

Calenda considered for a moment the possibility of a trap, but if it were it was already too late. Even if they had the strength to fight their way through dozens of dwarven and silmid warriors, somehow open the gates, and escape into the wilderness, this city was protected by two beings of power equivalent to Lyra. They lived or died at the sufferance of their hosts for the time being. "If it's as essential as you say."

Suggested Listening

The trio followed the silmid guards, neither of whom admitted to any knowledge of what the meeting was about, save that the highest members of the council would be there. They were led deep into the city, toward a massive growth almost identical to the one Lyra crafted.

"It even feels the same as Lyra," Cali said as she stared up at the branches. Somewhere in those leaves, a pair of incredibly powerful dryad nested. If nothing else, they could feel safe from Claron while here in this city. Now if only they could feel safe from the city's guardians.

"It smells like Lyra, too," Elruin said.

The inside of the great tree was different, as hollow as the Lyra's creation, but there were no rooms or flooring. The many silmid in the building scaled the trunk to get to the platforms where they needed to go.

"We head downward," the guard said. Roots seemed to have shaped themselves into a long, winding, narrow that leading deep into the heart of the earth.

As they went down, they found that natural light faded to nothing, yet they could still see thanks to an omnipresent blue glow that seemed to emanate from nowhere. Cali smiled at the familiar presence of edible moss dangling from the roots now above them.

"More than Lyra, this place feels a little like the shelter," Lemia said. "It serves a completely different function, but something here was built by the same architects that crafted the ruins Arila was set atop of." The centaur-demons that Scratch had spoken of, if he spoke truth. That the monstrous slavers of every child's horror story, the ones that it appeared were once real, were also the crafters of such wonders still proved difficult for Lemia to grasp.

"Communication magic," Elruin said. "The artifact sends a message. I bet it can be heard anywhere in the world."

"Such insight in one so young," an elderly voice said. "Perhaps it could reach across 'e world, but it can speak only to its sister constructs."

Now that they had reached the bottom, they could see the vast room, and the numerous silmid and dwarves which had been awaiting their arrival. "Honored Elders," Calenda clasped her hands together and bowed, an act which her companions imitated. "To what do we owe such honor?"

"Oh, don't encourage 'em," one of the elder dwarves said. "You're loyal to a 'oreign crown, no 'alse platitudes, i' you please. Now let's get on wi' 'is war meeting."

"War meeting?" Calenda blinked. "You're getting involved?"

"Not as such." A silmid of solid white said. As she spoke, she moved her hands over the shapes of the artifact. "We merely pro'ide the means."

Suggested Listening

Magic burst from the stone device, warped around it, then the light shifted until they stood in an ancient but well maintained stone building. Several examples of centaur art stood, carved into the walls, with a man and woman in finery standing in the middle of the room.

Calenda dropped to her knee, head down. "My liege!"

Lemia dropped a moment later, followed by a confused Elruin a moment after. She had never bowed like this before.

"Rise," the woman- the queen- said. "We owe you too great a debt."

"As you command." Lemia rose to her feet, followed again by the other two. "To what do we owe the honor?"

"I'm afraid there is little honor to offer." The queen put her hand on the elbow of the man next to her. "I admit, I was skeptical at first when your accusations against my step son were brought to our attention. Recent events leave no doubt that either he or a convincing impostor has conquered Arila, and much of the northwestern edge of the empire. Thanks to your early warning, the eastern half the empire remains free for now."

"We did as any loyal member of the empire would do."

"So many would claim, but when time comes to do, far fewer rise up to do so. We are in your debt, Priestess Esra." The queen smirked, for she knew that 'Esra' was a false name, or rather was the name of a priestess of olden times stripped of her title and executed by a corrupt and jealous high priest who lusted after her. No member of the church took the title, save as an obscure warning to those rare few who knew the tale, as any competent religious advisor to the crown would. "And we must put ourselves further in your debt."

"What do you require of me, My Queen?" In spite of her death, and the theoretical ending of her oath, Calenda was still devoted to her service. She could not, however, drag her companions into the situation with her. "Though I am afraid there is little I can accomplish."

The queen once again looked at her husband, before she spoke. "As of this moment, you are the only apparently loyal free agent we possess. You see, this pretender claiming to be Lord Claron has incredible power. He, or his agents, seem to know whenever we try to act. By means unknowable, he appears before any force we send out, and destroys them with his inhuman power."

"You fear spies?"

"We find it unlikely," the queen said. "Or, if he has spies, they are the least of his abilities. It is not just that he can attack any of our forces. Somehow, he has routed all of them, sometimes on opposite sides of the empire, within minutes of one another. Such power, perhaps he is the 'Chosen of Enge', as he so claims?"

"I refuse to accept it. Whatever his power, it does not come from our god." Cali's nails dug into her palms hard enough that they would have drawn blood, were she still able to bleed. "If he was truly Chosen, he would not need to conquer. Every High Priest of the empire would have known and proclaimed his station."

"Well spoken, and the same conclusion our advisors reached," the queen said. "His claims aside, there is no deception in his power. He can find any of my agents, even the ones that none but I know of, yet in spite of all his efforts, he has been unable to locate the young child standing next to you."

Cali took her eyes off the floor for just a moment. "I'm sorry, my queen?"

"My agents may have been caught quickly, but some were loyal enough to send what information they could," she said. "We know he seeks a child necromancer of pale skin and black hair, one which was defended in Arila by the dryad known as Lyra. The reports say your name is Elruin?"

"Go ahead, Rin, there's no point in hiding it now," Calenda said. Whatever else was afoot here, the girl's cover was blown. It would be miracle enough to hide her own status as deceased.

"I'm Elruin," the girl kept her head down. She had never been taught how to address a queen, before. "My liege?"

"Do you know what this pretender to the throne wants from you? Or why Lyra defended you? Might it be her influence that protects you from being found by his magic?"

"Lyra lived with my big sister Cali... Calenda, and Rena, who looked after her. They're both dead now." Elruin had enough tact to leave out that this didn't stop one of them from being in this conversation with them. Her sadness that Rena died was genuine, however. "Lord Claron said he was going to sacrifice me to Enge. I don't know why, but I don't think Enge wants me to be sacrificed or he'd have told the priests."

"Knowing his goals, even if we don't know the reasons behind them, is still useful," the queen said. "Which brings us back to your goals. You are now the only people who can act with impunity outside of the walls. Do you have any plans for stopping the pretender?"

"We... may have one or two," Calenda admitted.

=====

Freakin' 4k word chapter... *that* is what made this update so late...

Elruin, making friends and influencing people, sometimes even in conventional ways.

One little trick added to Midara games (in part to avoid power leveling) is that a great many encounters- especially combat ones- will simply stop happening after a certain level of "Reputation: Power" points are acquired by the party. Obviously, the threshold rises with the strength of the foes, but it seems appropriate that eventually foes (especially sapient ones) will learn that you run from the necrololi. Also, in an effort to emulate "not goddamn stupid enemies", the AI in Midara will actively target the weakest foe, and won't use attacks that fail to cause damage. At least, not more than once. The enemies *will* hit the characters that can least afford to be hit with the strongest attacks they have, constantly. Because that's how a smart fighter acts.

There are very few villains in my stories. There are mostly people with strongly conflicting opinions. Not always, because history is rife with monsters who really are fucking evil, but they are exception rather than rule. Most monsters do what they do believing they do the right thing, that's what is most terrifying about them.

Funny thing is, the goblins, in being so convinced that the silmid were on the side of the tainted, never so much as considered warning them of the undead, thus Elruin's crimes go unknown and unpunished.

If you're envisioning Elruin making zombies do the Thriller dance, that means I'm not alone. I'd even call the ability 'Thriller' in the game, if I wasn't afraid of being sued by the Jackson estate. They gotta have, like, zero money left at this point.

 

Suggested Listening

"We can't tell you." Elruin spoke out of turn, fearing that Cali might say something dangerous. "What if Claron has a way to hear through his magic?"

The king and queen were less concerned with the possibility of the magic being intercepted than with the potential of spies, but they kept their thoughts to themselves. The fact was that the child said nothing they had not already considered.

"My apologies, my queen, Elruin is young, and has no talent for indirect deception." Calenda, however, did speak. "Ell, we all recognized the risk, the plan was for me to provide a series of half truths and whole deceptions, in the hopes of sending Claron on some fruitless chase through the wilderness while we pursued our true goals. For example, I might have fed them a story of a hidden monastery with the other Eye of Enge. Claron has one, and no doubt would stop at nothing if he knew where to find the second."

The queen nodded, a dainty tilt of the head that hid all of her emotions. "Perhaps it is better this way. The pretender appears to have skill in the courtly process, and knows the lies you choose can reveal a great deal about your plans. Of note, the Eye of Enge still sits upon its Pedestal. Now I believe we would be best served ending our conversation here."

"You are most wise, my queen." Calenda, who still had her head down, bowed even further. She kept her head down until she felt the ripple of energies from the ancient artifact release their hold on the area, and the dryad energies washed it all away. Now they stood once again in the presence of the dwarven and silmid leaders.

Suggested Listening

"I'm sorry," Elruin said.

"Don't worry about it, Queen Laris was right, there's no way Claron would have been fooled anyway." Cali hoped her smile was reassuring. "This way, he won't be able to guess what we were saying by what wasn't said. All he could learn, now, is that you made it somewhere safe. I would almost advocate we remain here, where it's safe, but for the stuff that the queen didn't say."

"I don't know this court garbage, but I read a little between the lines," Lemia said. "It has to do with that 'Second Eye of Enge' myth, right? Wait, it's not the myth, is it? There really are two? I suppose it makes sense, eyes tend to come in pairs."

"They come in a trio, in this case," Cali said. "Which is where the icon representing Enge comes from. There is no official doctrine as to whether the so-called 'Eye of Enge' artifact is really one of Enge's lost eyes. It is, however, an artifact blessed by our emperor, and one believed to have a long lost twin."

"Does your queen know 'ere's a second arti'act?" A young looking silmid asked. If she was in this group, she was an elder and thus quite old in spite of her youthful appearance.

"I'm uncertain, but she must be under significant political stress at the moment," Cali said. "She never called him Claron, just 'the pretender'. If I had to guess, it is because Lord Claron is King Velan's son. I'm sure it pains both of them in their own way."

Lemia now recognize that the conversation was never for their benefit, but for the silmid elders. "Wait, does this mean the other Eye might not have a requirement that the wielder be 'Chosen'?" While the Eye of Enge was far from alone in being enchanted to serve only a select few, there were many artifacts with no such security measure.

"That, and so much more!" Cali looked at all the silmid; they had their own traditions and practices, but they still worshiped the ancestral god which protected their homes and was their homes. "It means Claron knows he's not Chosen! He knows he can't take the true artifact, or it would destroy him as it destroys all pretenders. He could at any time walk up to Engewal, request the right to touch the artifact, and if he was truly Chosen, it would acknowledge him, and all the kings of Engeval would be his to rightfully command by Enge's own law. What purpose would his barbaric war serve if the empire was already his by divine will?"

Some of the silmid and dwarves began to speak amongst themselves, in their own language.

Calenda tried to listen as the debate grew more divisive and chaotic. "We should leave." She stepped toward the exit tunnel, and the long walk up. "The longer we stand here, the more they remember how they feel about outsiders."

Lemia and Elruin deferred to their more experienced teammate. "I don't speak silmid, but even I could tell that it's getting unpleasant. What happened?"

"I can only speak a few words," Cali said. "The word 'liars' came up more than once. I think some of it was because we we hid our identities. More was their general distrust of outsiders, however. Something about how we ran off and came back with more dead men's treasures. The usual 'humans are unthinking war machines who only come to us when they need us' rhetoric. What it comes down to is that they don't trust us, and our actions didn't contradict their prejudices."

"Then, what, if we stayed here and helped them out, they'd be more inclined to help in the war against Claron?" Lemia asked. "And then they have the nerve to say we're the ones who don't care unless we need something from them?"

"But if we stayed here, then those bad men would have been able to do awful things to those poor people, and the puppies," Elruin said. "We did the right thing!"

"We did a good thing." Calenda put her hand on Elruin's shoulder, to comfort them both. "But not necessarily the smart thing. On the other hand, the silmid have little choice but to get involved to some extent, just not as enthusiastically as hoped. And we did profit from destroying the bandits, even made some allies that Claron would never expect."

"Maybe it's better if we don't work too closely with the silmid, anyway," Lemia said. "We're different than them, perhaps even incompatible. I have yet to see any silmid playing with dollies, you know."

"You're right," Elruin said. She was still a little sad that they couldn't have the silmid helping them, but not if it meant she'd have to destroy Mister Clackybones again. She would never let another of her wonderful horsies die again.

"Now, let's go plan our trip. If we leave the carts behind, take only what we need, and avoid distractions, we can make a hundred miles a day with a hard march. How far are we from the well?"

"I can't speak for weather, but it's easy terrain. Even if we have to be careful not to get seen. No more than three days," Lemia said. Once again, Cali was lying, and so was Lemia. Their target took them almost straight up a mountain, and with the benefits of sarite and undead labor, they could travel far more than a hundred miles in a day.

"Good, I'm meeting up with Katek, she's buying anti-poison and acid shards for you and Elruin and stocking up on food. I want you to pick whomever of our refugees seems most trustworthy to look after our equipment. Hire a few of them, we should only keep the useful hardware, let them have the clothes and other less useful stuff. Let's see if we can't get rid of the excess animals and carts, give them away to the merchant caravans if we have to, it's better than paying to feed animals we can't use. I want out of here by tonight."

"Great." Lemia hated traveling at night, but she reminded herself that the beasts of the wilderness were just as happy to hunt during the day. A thought which did nothing to improve her opinion.

By the time Lemia arrived at the entrance where the refugees remained, she found a handful of other human merchants were eying their camp and the people still there. She took a breath, reminded herself that they were not in human lands, then walked toward the men. She would pretend it was like talking with silmid.

As it turned out, she needn't have worried, when Mato stepped away from the group to greet her, smiling for the first time since they'd met. "Lia!" Mato then gestured at the men. "These are my cousins!"

This was better news than the alternative that they'd somehow broken a law or offended someone. "Good. I'm glad for you." To her surprise, Lemia found she was speaking sincerely. Mato had been a great deal of help, in spite of the misery she'd been through. "Say, does that mean they can help us?"

Mato glanced back at her family. "Uh, first, can I ask a question? I know you said you were mercenaries before, why did you risk your lives for us?"

"Truth told, we didn't," Lemia said. "Our clients lost family to the bandits, we were paid to take blood for blood, nothing more or less. We didn't realize there were living prisoners until the battle was over."

"Oh," Mato looked back. "Uncle Nel said that was probably it, but I guess I was expecting something a little more romantic. Like, our families came together to hire heroes to save us."

"Sorry, as far as I know that only happens in fairytales," Lemia said. In half of those fairytales, the captives were found dead. "But on the off chance you find a bunch of families who want to chip in to get a rescue done, be sure and let us know." Lemia wasn't certain how the rest of the team would feel about the mercenary deception, but it was the best lie she could come up with, and it was true from a certain point of view.

"Don't take it too hard, Matty, such is the way of the world." The eldest, and thus presumable leader, of the men came forward. He was in good health, though his hair had grayed enough that he was probably the father of the other men. "But their actions were more heroic than most, if they chose to bring you to safety without being hired to do so. I'm sure they weren't expecting to have to guard you from the wilderness for the whole trip. Managing caravans is difficult enough when it's full of trained workers rather than traumatized children. And then to give you the goods the bandits stole, instead of keeping it for themselves. "

Lemia bit her tongue. "We got what we came for, and more." They did get sarite and magical equipment, after all. "Why compound suffering with suffering? Well, aside the bandits, may they be forgotten."

He then addressed Lemia directly. "You have my undying gratitude, not just for finding my cousin and removing the bandits from the road, but for restoring an old man's faith in humanity. The world is made better by your efforts."

"If you truly mean that, then we could use your help," Lemia said. "Our team likes to travel light, and we have little need for most of these supplies. If you could take them off our hands, that would be wonderful. Don't worry, we're not looking to profiteer, but you will have to take the people we rescued home. We don't have the time or resources to get these people back to human lands, and you do."

The older gentleman gave his cousin a meaningful look, and did some calculations in his head. The cost of the extra animals would be a little steep, but decent quality clothing was hard to find and easy to sell, so he would still do better than breaking even. In addition, it wouldn't hurt to have extra wagons around, just in case. Not useful enough to pay for, but not a burden either. In fact, he could ease the burden on himself by calling in a favor or two with the other traders coming through. Each had their own routes to the more civilized corners of the world, which could be closer to these kids' homes.

"I'd be happy to do my part," he said.

"My team will be glad to hear it."

Later on, Cali smirked at her. "Now we're your team, huh?"

"Hey, I got the job done, didn't I?" Lemia crossed her arms. "And whose team do you think this is? And don't say yours, just because you're the one who knows how the military side of things are run."

"The military. The political. The religious." Lemia took her thumb and started placing fingers on it as she listed. "The economic."

"And I handle all our alchemy, or did you forget your new gloves?" Gloves which were left outside the gates, buried with a small army that dug their own mass grave. "Besides, I'm the one who located our next mission objective."

"Yeah, but we voted to go to the one you didn't want," Cali said. "By that argument, Scratch is the leader."

"Can I be the leader?" Elrun asked. "I promise to give you lots of hugs and let you play with my dollies whenever you like."

"She does represent most of the team's firepower," Cali said.

"Sure, why not?" Lemia said. "The twelve year old is now in charge. Makes about as much sense as everything else we do, and you are more than half of our firepower."

"Thank you, I shall endeavor to lead you to the best of my ability." Elruin said with the seriousness that only a child could muster.

"Live up to that promise, and you're already better than half my commanding officers." Cali ruffled Elruin's hair. "Now go to bed. We'll be heading out early, and part of being a good commander is getting enough sleep."

Elruin beamed up at her. "Okay!" She gave Cali a hug, then crawled into the nest to take a nap.

"You've been a big sister for a few months, and already you're better at manipulating small children into doing as they're told than most parents are by the time their kids are her age."

Suggested Listening (Warning, this one's rather unpleasant)

The sun was still below the horizon, though perhaps that was because the horizon was well over their heads. "And we've arrived at the bleeding anus of the world!" Scratch announced, as if he was a tour guide.

"Should we make the corpses start wiping?" Lemia asked. Aside a distinct lack of vegetation, she saw nothing special in about this place. More to the point, she felt nothing special, which was rather the opposite of her expectations when promised a well of exotic magic unlike any she had ever experienced before.

Clackybones slowed to a stop, responding to Elruin's trembling. "Get out." A quiet, pleading whisper. "Get out!" She put her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to block the discordant, hateful, unacceptable song tearing through her mind. "Get out!" She screamed at the offending distortion, cried out with the power of Requiem, and drove the twisted music back with a violent force of will that staggered Calenda and left the mindless undead crumpled to the ground.

"Knew you'd feel it first," Scratch said.

"Merat!" Lemia ran to Elruin, but was driven back by the tornado of necromancy trying to drive back an unseen foe.

Ketak, too, was forced to admit she could not safely approach the chaotic negation magic. Perhaps long enough to kill the child necromancer and shut off the mage's power, but not enough to rescue the girl.

Elruin's heart hammered in her chest, every fear she'd ever known amplified by a thousand lifetimes crushed down on her from all sides. Her magic, her mind, her soul, nothing but a fragile egg crushed not by a careless girl's slippery fingers, but by the power of a world that sought nothing more than its destruction. Keep singing. Nothing else matters. Keep singing. Elruin mumbled her song, a frantic defense against the wrongness of this terrible, horrific place.

Then the others began to recognize the horror, as they gazed over the precipice of reality, and knew that what lay on the other side was a cloying emptiness that threatened to peel away their souls.

"This is Void magic?" Lemia closed her eyes, desperate to find pattern in the emptiness. She found nothing, but Elruin struggling to drive it back, to construct a reality around herself. Lemia reached out, grabbed the notes and bent them, reinforced the necromancer's instinctive magic with pattern and law. Ketak contribute as well, warmth and heat, interactions between interactions, a fundamental 'atmosphere' for them in the astral emptiness.

Calenda was last to recover. Lacking a true connection to the flesh, her experience was different and alien to the others. In some ways pleasant, and that enjoyability allowed her to be drawn deeper than the others before Elruin's cries drew her back. She granted motion to the pattern, allowed it to dance within its own song. A floor to stand on.

Soon, far sooner than they had expected, they built their shell of stability against the maw.

"Not bad," Scratch said. "Most of the time, I have to drag everyone out one at a time, so they can recover and do it on the second try. Also change their pants."

"You knew this would happen." Lemia glared at the floating creature, the only one of them which hadn't contributed to the shield, and hadn't needed to.

"There will be plenty of time for recriminations later," Scratch said. "For now, you've awoken one of the inhabitants."

The air shook, crack, broke as if it was a pane of glass. Stained glass, the whole of reality nothing but a fragile colored portrait, hiding an unknowable vastness behind it. A long, amorphous pallid limb slid through broken window. Its eyes, all eight of them, looked in every direction as if unable to comprehend their world any more than they could recognize where it came from.

"Ooh, and a thaumivore on the first try. Magic's worse than useless against them. They'll suck it right up and be that much stronger for it."

Another tendril slid out, then a third, until it plopped out on the ground, a writhing ball of giant white worms and eyes. Now, the countless eyes began to focus on the one other anomaly in this broken place: them.

=====

That's the thing about magical artifacts that kill the unworthy. They don't need a security system. Just a janitor that doesn't mind cleaning up after some fool gets the Raiders of the Lost Ark experience.

Fun fact about that music the end... it's actually a close approximation of what dolphins hear when the military points its sonar at them, cranked up to decibels that give their brains the Raiders of the Lost Ark experience...

And this is the story's first encounter with Void magic. If you're getting Lovecraft vibes here... that's intentional...


VOTERS: Put together a combat strategy. No, punching Scratch repeatedly for being an asshole is not actually a valid strategy.

 

Suggested Listening (Warning, still unpleasant)

"Everyone get back!" Elruin shouted, then she gave orders to those that did not need to hear her to obey.

The dollies had to go in first, to protect the people. Elruin knew this, though she still hated to sacrifice them. She sang her song to the closest human corpse, using her newest spell to bolster its strength and speed. It charged spear-first into the mass of tendrils that she could not yet decide if was a single creature, or a mass of worms that got themselves tied in a knot. Perhaps there was no difference, where this thing came from.

The beast howled when the spear pierced it, though it was impossible to guess whether it did so in anger, pain, or joy, or explain how it could howl at all without a mouth.

The magical augmentation of the sacrificial doll melted on contact when the tendrils wrapped around the doll. For some inexplicable reason, the taint which let the doll be puppetted remained. Elruin changed her notes, the doll released the spear and began to hack away with its arming sword even as the creature attempted to strangle and crush the doll.

"We can't rely on augmentation or magic weapons!" Lemia launched one of her incendiaries at the beast. Flame erupted across the creatures surface, causing it to cry out again.

Ketak's scales began to shimmer as she drew together her magic. A simple, minor spell that provoked the flames to burn hotter. "Merat na!" The flames dimmed a moment later, and the tentacles started to rub the flame away. "It even feeds on indirect magic!"

"What part of 'thaumivore' confused you?" Scratch asked. "It eats all magic it comes in contact with. Except taint, it seems to instinctively avoid taint. Good show, though, I always wondered what happened if the magic was added after the attack."

Meanwhile, Elruin's other zombies began to encircle the beast, pelting it with arrows.

It dropped the drained corpse, then began to roll forward, propelling itself by means of tendrils toward Elruin.

"It's coming after the strongest source of magic!"

Clackybones jumped back, then bounded away, moving more like a deer than a horse. The tendril blob gave chase, moving far faster than anything its shape had a right to move; it would catch Clackybones soon.

"Circle around the archers!" Cali shouted at the retreating necromancer. "Enhance them!"

Elruin trusted Cali's judgment, and made Clackybones turn. If she rode a normal horse, which required guidance from its master, she wouldn't have had the time to spare to cast her spells, but Clackybones was tied to her thoughts and mind, allowing Elruin to time her actions for the exactly right moments to enhance one zombie after another.

"Gimme that!" Ketak yanked a spear from one of the zombies, it didn't seem to notice. She gripped the arrowhead, concentrating her power upon the tip until the metal began to glow red, and the wooden shaft caught fire. "Entek ne! Cheap trash!"

Arrow after arrow struck true, then the creature gave up on Elruin's retreating source of magic and engulfed another skeleton. Once captured, it released its bow in order to use its sword. Moments after the energy had been drained, the corpse was forgotten in favor of the next nearest zombie. The released zombies were still whole, and in fact left unharmed aside the magic stripped from them, and some small burns from the flames of the alchemical weapons Lemia hit it with.

"Stop enhancing the zombies!" Lemia shouted. "It's using the magic to heal itself!"

Now that they had distance, Elruin could see it was true. Her lifesight didn't work on this thing, save to show a featureless empty blob where some living force should be, but with natural eyesight she could see the wounds stitch themselves together.

Then the burning spear sank into its side, quenching the red glow in monster fluid while steam that was once its blood rose into the air. "Hah! I knew I could beat its trick! Someone get me a weapon that's not magic or cheap garbage!"

Even with the burns and cuts, the creature kept moving from zombie to zombie, stripping them of power.

"Persistent little bastards, ain't they?" Scratch sat in the air, watching the show. "Fun to watch, 'course I ain't gotta worry about 'em eating my face like you do."

"I swear if I die, I'm going to come back just to ruin your afterlife!" Lemia launched another bomb at the creature. As far as she could tell, it didn't like fire of the natural variety.

"No thanks, sounds too much like being a parent."

Having consumed all of the magic on the skeletons, the creature refocused on Elruin, and began to chase her along yet again. Meanwhile, the zombie troops picked up their bows and returned to the strategy they had used before.

Calenda waited until the chase came close to her, then she threw all of her power into her own augmentation and jumped over the pair. When she was directly above, she threw a sword straight down at the creature, impaling it through the center mass and pinning it into the dead soil below.

It oozed apart, then began to roll away with but a small pool of brackish white goo left behind on the blade. Now that Calenda was flaring her power, it decided she was the more desirable target and began chasing after her.

Cali threw her knives at the creature while continuing to flee. "Why won't this thing die?!" As fast as she was, the tendrils allowed it to move faster still.

Scratch, still floating above, laughed at the unintentional joke. "Better run, I'd be real upset if you died. Again."

Elruin fired her death bolt so that it sailed past Cali, and exploded into a shower of necromantic energies. It was harmless, more illusion than actual power, but it did distract the beast long enough to let Cali gain a few precious feet of distance before it returned to the chase.

Then it fell over, twitched, and deflated.

"Is... is it dead?" Lemia took a step back, in case it sprang up yet again. Everyone else followed her example.

"Not quite, give it a second." Scratch floated down above shapeless mass in time for it to release a loud, foul-smelling blue gas from some unspeakable orifice. "Heh, that never gets old. Now it's dead."

Suggested Listening

Lemia coughed and covered her face. "Ugh! Kill me so I don't have to breathe anymore!"

Elruin pulled her dress up to cover her nose. It didn't help. In spite of the stench, she began to sing, and play her violin. Their defensive bubble had been damaged in the fight, and she feared the unshielded void far more than any aroma. She changed it, twisted it further, to smooth the cacophony into something that wasn't about to drive her mad.

Ketak looked around as only she and the dead weren't reacting. "We dwar'es don't ha'e a sense o' smell like yours. I don't 'ink it's toxic, whate'er it is."

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't torture you to your second death!" Cali shouted at Scratch. It required taking a breath of the horrid air, but she was dead so it was limited to the one breath.

"Woah, don't you think that's moving too fast? Maybe we should have dinner first, catch a show, some forepl-urk!" Scratch had no features to look surprised when Calenda reached out and gripped him with her hand, then began to squeeze.

"I've. Been. Practicing." Cali answered the question everyone thought, and replaced it with the question of how she could practice to catch something that didn't have a physical form. "Now talk, ghost."

"First, I'd just like to say that is totally unfair," Scratch said. "Second, none of you were ever in real danger. Third, this is our key to beating Claron."

"Never in real danger?" Calenda squeezed harder, causing Scratch's body to distort and bulge through the gaps in her fingers. "It was running around sapping magic from everyone!"

"Right, sapping magic, not life force or anything else that's permanent. Worst thing these guys can do on their own is give you a hangover. Granted, it's the worst hangover of your life, but it doesn't kill. Besides, they die in a minute or two on this side of the void hole. I think it's for about the same reason humans don't do so well underwater. It was all in good fun, and you were never in any real danger. As long as you're here, at least. These things are nothing compared to some of the horrors out there. Lucky us, most of them are too smart to come over here where they know they'll die."

"Right, the other side." Now that the danger had passed, Lemia was curious about the void. "What is that thing?"

"Not a damn clue," Scratch said. "I once had a scholar try to explain it to me. Best I got is that it's what happens if you walk in a direction that doesn't exist."

"A... what?"

"Well, we got up and down, left and right, back and forward," Scratch said. Meanwhile, Cali had relaxed her grip enough for him to slide out. "Then there's the magical directions, inward and outward, or something to that effect. Or that's what the mage said to call it, something about the relationship between the self and other. Then there's Void. Which is none of those things. That which cannot exist yet does. I admit, I feel a certain kinship. I suspect I'm not the only one here who does. Right, Calenda?"

"No!" Then Cali hesitated. "Well, maybe it feels a little less alien to me. It's... still wrong, though."

"So are we," Scratch said. "And before you ask, no, I can't tell you what relationship Void has with Taint, if they do at all. I've taken every necromancer I've ever worked with to a void-hole, save a handful who died before I got the chance. Some devoted their lives to studying them, if any found answers they neglected to share them with me."

"Who made them?" Elruin asked. She'd stabilized her song to one of mourning for the pain of the world. "Why would anyone cause something so horrible?"

"That'd be the Kiara, the Goddess of the Void. Or, as I like to call her, 'the bitch who fucked the world'. What you're looking at is one of the holes she did it with. There are hundreds of them across the planet. For those strong enough, you can theoretically climb in that hole, fight your way through all the freaks on the other side, then climb back through anywhere anywhere. But none of you are anywhere close to that strong. As to why she did it? Couldn't tell you, she lived and died long before I did."

"A shortcut, perhaps?" Ketak suggested. "Or seeking resources. We dwar'es do it, why not a goddess? What incredible secrets might be on 'at side?"

"I've never heard of a Goddess of the Void before," Calenda said. "She's not on any of the divine charts, controls no element, and I can't imagine an Ancestral God having such power."

"She wouldn't be," Scratch said. "She was a Living God. The most powerful mortal to have ever existed, stronger than any of the High Gods, perhaps even stronger than The Seven, but a mortal still. She lived, she wielded power enough to shatter a world, she had some offspring, and then she died like mortals tend to do."

"A few minutes ago, I wouldn't have believed you," Lemia said. "But that was before I witnessed hole leading in a direction that doesn't exist. It... truly is bleeding, isn't it? This wasn't meant to exist, it's a wound."

"A wound, infected with disease," Scratch said. "Which we are going to use to kill Claron."

"How?" Cali asked. "This... thing... is tough, but you said yourself that it can't kill."

"No, it can't, but it doesn't need to," Scratch said. "I got a look at Claron's power, most of us have. He's not weak, but he's relying on the Eye of Enge to empower him. Strip that power away and I'm sure you can kill him now. Nothing in this world strips power quite like a thaumivore. Especially when the victim bleeds energy like Claron does, we'll have at least two or three of the nasties climbing out of that hole. Then when they've sucked him dry, we carve a few extra holes. And the best part is, there's only six or seven beings on the planet who know enough to explain it after the fact, let alone see it coming, and none of them are Claron."

"It could work," Cali admitted after a moment. "Luring him here might be tricky, and I can't imagine how we're going to explain how we killed him. They'll know it wasn't through raw power, none of us have that sort of city-breaking strength. We'll have to do a lot of planning."

"Details you can worry about later," Scratch said. "The first question is, does Elruin want a new extra-abomination dolly, or would you kids like to see what void sarite looks like?"

"Couldn't we just, I dunno, lure more of them out to die?" Lemia asked.

"Yeah, but I don't know how many are that close to the hole," Scratch said. "More than two, less than six, that's my best guess. We kill off too many, and there won't be any left for Claron. Of course, after Claron's dead, we can do whatever we like with the remains."

=====

This is one of those important chapters. For several reasons.

Also... I just recently discovered this Max Ablitzer guy. I now feel the desire to go back and change all Elruin oriented themes in the story thus far to his works.

 

Suggested Listening

"I don't know why you continue this resistance." A casual brush of his hand elicited a hiss through the clenched teeth of his half-sister. He dragged his gloved hand down Juna's jaw, leaving a trail of broken skin, cooked flesh, and smoke behind. "Then, you always were a little off. Perhaps the rumors are true, perhaps you enjoy my ministrations?" He moved down her neck, her chest, soon he'd crest over her breasts, the first overtly sexual step in this drawn out process.

He had no particular love of torture, nor any puerile interest in his sibling, but such was the burden of dealing with a rebellious city. She wasn't the one he was trying to break. If he was, he wouldn't have wasted time on torturing her. He was confident he could torture her to death a dozen times over without breaking her, but she wasn't the weak link in this chain.

"Stop!" Garit shouted, struggling against the magic-suppression bonds which held him. "I'll talk! Just leave her alone."

"Don't you dare." Juna gasped for breath. "There is nothing. He could do to us. That will compare to what I'll do to you if you talk." Her statement was made with utmost sincerity, for she hated nothing so much as a traitor. She glared, as defiant as ever, at her elder brother. "You may as well kill us now."

"Careful, I might take that as a challenge." A minuscule pulse of power heated the glove again. He would have to limit the damage, so that the healer could fix her before permanent scars were left behind, at least ones of the nature that numbed her flesh against further pain. He held little hope that this would be the session where the pair broke. They might try to pretend it, to feed him lies, but soon the lies would be dismissed and he would be that much closer to the truth.

"Elruin!" A soldier was wise enough to shout her name as he entered. Then he fell to one knee and kept his head bowed low. It was bad enough that people knew that he resorted to torturing his siblings, he would have preferred no one knew the method used. He had power to spare, but legitimacy would continue to be a struggle until Enge gave him his final acknowledgment. "We have a lead. It comes from Morks, but appears credible."

Juna's head tilted up just a little. Fear, concern, all were obvious to Claron in watching her features. She was the fighter, but she lacked the social finesse of her brother, and that was also part of why it was her that he targeted for torture.

That she seemed nervous suggested they might know something about the girl's movements, something which they feared morks might discover. This, more than anything, gave Claron confidence that this was the moment he'd waited for. "Uewatsu, to me." He braced myself for the wave of cold discomfort that came with rift magic. He waited, then grew impatient. "I meant immediately."

Suggested Listening

"I am an old woman." Her cane came through the hole in nowhere before she did. "Children these days, no respect for their elders." Her faded, tangled purple hair covered her face, and her black cloak covered most of the rest of her body, but the wrinkles on her hand showed she was of advanced age. "What do you need of me, my lord."

He ignored her sarcasm and disrespect. Let his siblings think whatever they liked, for they would never speak of it to the public. He turned his attention to the kneeling soldier, chosen for discretion as all his messengers were. "What did the morks reveal?"

"Little, my lord," he answered. "They claim they intercepted a message from a child necromancer, sent to Enrest. They claim to know where she's hiding, and her future plans. Two of their number wait there, for you to bribe them for the rest of their knowledge."

"Enrest?" Claron kept one eye on his siblings as he pretended to consider the situation. "They must have fled to dwarven lands, Sonhome is the most obvious possibility." They provided no specific tell, so he decided they didn't know the reason the girl was there aside from the obvious.

"It will take some effort for me to open a gate for your armies of that distance."

"No, it would be a fool's errand." Claron knew of Sonhome's guardians, and had little desire to learn their capabilities. If the morks knew what Elruin's plans were, he had reason to believe the girl would leave the city at some point, or that he could use the knowledge to find her other allies. "Take me to Enrest."

"As you command."

Claron hated going through portals, and the stomach-churning distortions that came from moving from one place to another in the blink of an eye. He remained tall, proud, but had to take several seconds after his translocation to avoid losing the contents of his stomach. Instead, he took stock of the two morks waiting before him. One was old, scarred, a true veteran. The other was smaller, a female.

"You came." "Such power." "Unlike any we've ever seen." "But the child of ebon hair and purple eyes." "The girl who sings of death." "She who smells of grave soil." "She eludes you." "We can tell you where to find her." "We can reveal her secrets."

"Five head of cattle." Claron's patience for mork chattering lasted as long as it took for him to recover from the stomach-shredding magic he subjected himself to. "Fifteen more if your information reveals her exact location and plans."

The pair looked at each other. "Double it." "Yes, double." "Valuable child." "You need her." "You need u-rk"

Claron's eye socket burned as he called upon the magical artifact which held the will of his god. Before they could say another word, he had a hand on each of their throats, squeezing their larynges shut. "Here's an offer. How about if I don't execute the both of you for wasting my time?" He loosened his grasp.

"Northwest of Sonhome!" "They found magic!" "A way to escape from Engeval." "A magic portal." "They could go anywhere in the world." "They prepare even as we speak!" "No time to hurt us!" "Hurry hurry!"

"Cowards." Claron shoved the two beasts, each weighing more than a horse, away from him. "Uewatsu, does this sound familiar to you?"

The woman remained on the other side of the portal, but her voice carried through. "It is... plausible." A painful, interminable pause followed. "There are still old gates, damaged but functional. One lies in the direction they describe, but I know not how they learned of its existence. Few living mortals remember the secrets of the Isylan empire, I know of all of them by name, and not one has contacted the girl."

"Living?" Claron considered the claim. "What of the dead? This is a necromancer Enge has set us on a quest for, after all."

"I know little of the art, but I suppose it is possible," Uewatsu said. "Or perhaps the dwarves saved more ancient records than I had been led to believe. Here, let me show you the gateway."

Light shimmered in front of his face, as a one way portal was constructed in real time. Uewatsu's cooperation was unreliable at times, but her abilities were unlike any he had ever heard of before. Soon he was looking down upon an empty, all but lifeless patch of soil and rock. He recognized the black haired girl in a moment. She sat upon the ground, playing a violin.

Nearby, a dwarf worked on carving a stone which looked to have been dragged to the location not long before. A man stood nearby, erecting a wooden post.

"They're trying to lure me into attacking directly, playing on overconfidence."

"I do not see it," Uewatsu said. "Though I admit military theory was never a talent of mine. But do enlighten me, for the sake of scholarly curiosity."

"On the surface, it seems like they're unawares. Perhaps setting up for the ritual to exploit this portal." he said. "One step beneath the surface, you can see that the earth near the boulder was disturbed, freshly dug. I bet they hid a nasty surprise there. The pillar is at least half illusory, another weapon in disguise. And the girl's violin is a known magical weapon. She's not relaxing, nor is she engaged in active ritual, she's drawing power together for a battle."

"I see, clever."

"Imbecilic and transparent," Claron muttered. "I refuse to believe anyone who could elude me this long would make such amateurish traps. Which means these traps are meant to be seen, in order to hide a real surprise that I cannot see. How dangerous is this gateway?"

Uewatsu took her time to answer, as usual. "It's of little direct danger, so long as one is not fool enough to attempt to traverse the gate without a rift mage to guide the process. One might find himself caught between worlds, unable to return to this realm. A sailor lost at sea until he drowns in the waves."

Not for the first time, Claron questioned the wisdom of using Uewatsu's portals to move across his empire. Enge's empire, he reminded himself. "Interesting, and can they control the gate to capture or otherwise trick me into stepping through?"

"I can't imagine how," Uewatsu said. "Even a proper rift mage could not force the gate to move. Any being with such power could slay you in direct combat, without need for tricks and traps. And it's impossible to walk through a gate without attuning yourself to it first. A process that is both slow, and voluntary."

"Then the gate is their method to escape, if their traps fail," Claron said. "They hope to kill me, or if not then they hope to trick me into revealing a weakness they can exploit later. Can you track them through this gate, to the point were they exit?"

"With ease, but I hold my doubts that they shall ever emerge. Without power equivalent in strength to your own, they would never be able to fight their way through to the other side. There is but one fate for those who enter the rift unprepared."

Claron clenched his fists. He needed Elruin to prove himself to Enge, and it was never made clear what would happen should Elruin die without being properly sacrificed. Perhaps Enge would accept that as sacrifice enough, or perhaps he would be branded a failure and see his blessings stripped from him. It was not a gamble he wished to take while options remained.

The idea that the child acquired a power to rival his own was dismissed as irrelevant. If she had, then he had already failed in his quest and it would be better to die on the battlefield than wait for the day Enge grew impatient with his failure to get results.

"Open a voice rift to Renar. Now." He was the one Claron hated most, for his unfettered ambition. He was also the most competent of all the Ghosts of Sorvel, and the most well liked.

"My lord?" The man was alert, attentive, hungry.

"We found Elruin's location," Claron said. "She's attempting to flee using a source of magic similar to Uewatsu's. Are your men ready?"

"In your service, always." True, but only for the moment. Claron was well aware that the first thing Renar would attempt with Elruin would be to take the child to Enge himself, and perform the sacrifice first in the hopes that Enge would transfer the title of Chosen.

"Then go, and know that Enge is always watching." As am I. If Elruin's trap failed, then it would be a simple matter to wait for Renar's double-cross. If her trap succeeded, then Renar would die and he would step in once the trap had been sprung.

=====

A/N- Claron's still an ass. Yep. But like all good JRPGs (and most of the bad ones), there's the bad guy, and then there's the real bad guy. Chrono Trigger's something of an 'edge' case... Turns out the giant world-killer asteroid monster was more like a space ship, and the real Lavos lived inside it, but still...

Larynges is the plural of larynx. I did not know this until today.

And a chapter with two Gundry pieces... that's how you know we're nearing a climax.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin heard them gate in, but she said nothing. She drew her violin tighter, added a couple notes, an alert that meant nothing to their spies but meant everything to the dead which surrounded Elruin. Calenda's eyes snapped open, though there was nothing for her to see from her position. Scratch watched from the carved indentation of the stone, and the mindless corpses began to stir as their mistress readied their programming.

Everyone moved at once, a storm of blades and death.

Renar let his own soldiers charge in, each a trained assassin equipped to evade and strike with deadly precision. If they had been ordered to slay Elruin, then the girl would have died there, clutching her violin as she bled out. Instead, their orders were to fan out, test defenses, and ensure she could not escape.

Those defenses were discovered immediately, hunting spears burst from the ground the moment Renar's men were in range. Eight traps triggered, two men wounded, with spear barbs caught in their flesh.

On the defense, these soldiers were the perfect foe against the slow, predictable actions of the zombies. They danced back, like a wave breaking upon a rocky shore. Their speed, their precision, and their ability to coordinate was second to none in the empire and had been since long before Claron had begun leading the Ghosts.

It was, perhaps, the worst imaginable matchup against those who did not think, did not feel, and did not die. They launched a volley of sensory bombs at the emerged foe. Light magic, shadow magic, emotion distortion spells, and alchemical poisons, were deployed. While it was certain that any foe would be able to ignore perhaps half of the different attack strategies, no living thing they could imagine would be immune to all of them.

So they could be forgiven for their moment of hesitation and surprise when the zombies, obscured by the smoke and magic, pelted them at close range with their bows. Twenty good soldiers reduced to twelve healthy, six injured, and four dead.

Renar bolted forward, deflected two arrows with bare hands, and shoved a knife up under the helm of a zombie. He twirled, avoided two attackers who'd switched to their arming swords and dodged another arrow. A moment's distraction, brought on in part by the confusion that these men were willing to fire upon their own in close quarters, was enough that he failed to realize the man he'd impaled was still fighting.

From the safety of the viewing portal, Claron watched the scene. "Undead? She's Tainted as well?" Claron tensed and relaxed at the same time. Tensed, because the abominations were more dangerous than most would ever realize.

"I suspect this is why she must be sacrificed." Uewatsu voiced the source of his relief. "Enge recognized the abomination, where no others could."

Claron had always followed the teachings of Enge, but he was often less than flawless in his devotion. He viewed his god as a symbol uniting the empire, one who brought stability, and whose teachings allowed civilization to survive. Only after his revival did he begin to recognize that Enge was a personal god, with goals for his faithful. Then, upon the day of his resurrection, he was given the command to murder a child.

It was a cruel test of faith, one which Claron undertook while hoping that Enge planned to spare the girl in the end. Now all doubt and guilt had been taken from his shoulders, for he knew his task was right and good. "Truly, Emperor Enge is the wisest of all gods." Never again would he question, for he had been shown that even when he could not understand the reason, his god did.

Suggested Listening

Elruin adjusted her song with a twirl and a drag of her violin. She drew up a storm of darkness and called on Calenda to answer with her fog cloud. The battle would now be fought in darkness. Sooner than they had desired, but her undead were growing sluggish from the damage the remaining soldiers had inflicted upon them. If she didn't give them every advantage she could, then Claron would not need to show himself to defeat them.

Renar stumbled forward in the inky night, fast enough to spare himself from a fatal injury by little more than an eyeblink. The blade drew a line of blood along his back, as the magic of his armor could not counter the strength of Elruin's augmented undead, only mitigate them.

The two zombies in front of him acted in concert with them, to exploit his wounds and vulnerability. He gritted his teeth and planned, if not victory, then to take these things with him before he fell.

A light pierced the fog and necromantic shadows even as it mended the bloodied gash in Renar's back. Once again, he had faced death and been spared. "Asceli?"

"You didn't think I'd leave you to die here?" Asceli drew her hands together, then allowed her power to explode outward, burning away the necromantic energies they were fighting, and with it the bodies began to collapse, their motivational power scoured from existence. Elruin was forced to look away from the woman, as her life energies flared like the power of the sun, blinding her senses. So long as she was on the battlefield, Elruin could not rely upon lifesight.

This was the opportunity Ketak had been waiting for, although she had expected it to come when Claron arrived. A spear guided by the killing instinct embedded in Ketak's sarite caught Asceli's shoulder. She screamed and fell, spared from bleeding by the cauterizing heat of dwarven magic.

With many of her dollies destroyed, Elruin changed notes yet again. The tangled ball of dead tentacles, until now inert as the taint spread, burst from the ground with a speed surpassing any other doll she possessed thus far, and entangled one of the unprepared Ghosts. The living thaumivore sought to capture and feed, but the dead one knew only the desire to serve its mistress and kill in her name.

"Merat ne!" Renar drew upon his speed enhancing magic and met the dwarf in a direct collision. His first slash took her eye, and the second would have cut open her throat if she had human anatomy. "She's a healer!"

Ketak brought her arms up, shielding her face with her metallic forearms while giving her own regenerative magic a chance to mend the injuries. "I know!" The human insistence that healers were a special caste, not to be harmed on the battlefield, was not shared in dwarven tradition. To them, you downed the most dangerous opponent first, and there was nothing more dangerous on the battlefield than that which allowed other enemies to stand back up again.

"What is that thing?" Claron asked.

"It appears to be one of the beasts from within the rift." Uewatsu fought the urge to giggle at the absurdity of the scene she was witnessing. "They're little threat, no more intelligent than a rodent. It must have found its way through the rift, then died. They can't live long in our world, and lack the comprehension to realize it. In the rift, they are little more than prey animals."

"Then the abomination spreads her taint even to the things from this other world?"

"It certainly appears that way."

"How much difficulty would I have in killing it?"

"As it is, now, I suspect it's no greater than a weak chimera. A challenge for some, but not a match for your strength even before being blessed with the Eye."

Claron nodded, and continued to evaluate the beast in battle. It proved capable of holding its own against the two remaining warriors which Renar counted amongst his elite forces, but all they could do was fight it to a standstill, rather than defeat it. Still, even accounting for its status amongst the undead, if the things within the rift regarded such a beast as a prey animal, it would be wise to take Elruin before she attempted an escape.

Meanwhile, Ketak and Renar continued their clash. The problem facing Ketak now was that she was hopelessly outclassed by this maneuverable enemy. She attempted to claw for him, but it allowed him to get close and slash at her face, which forced her to draw further back and shield with both arms again.

With most of the undead devastated by Asceli's magic, it was left to Elruin and Ketak to fight what remained of the Ghosts of Sorvel. Elruin continued her song, dipped into the essence of anger and played of rage and unmitigated hate. Unseen by the few remaining foes, Lemia did the same from her place of hiding within the hollow stone 'statue'.

Ketak stayed on the defense while her foe's attacks grew wilder. Magic overtook his resistance, induced emotion overtook his reason, and he ceased to be a true threat to her. His new berserker strength was quite the sight to behold, but without precision he could only hammer at her steel scales like a rampaging toddler.

Meanwhile, she turned the heat up both metaphorically and literally. Her scales began to glow, and light was distorted by the energy radiating off of her body, yet her foe did not feel it. His body, stressed to the maximum, began to fail. In a few moments, exhaustion would overtake insanity, and he would be unable to stop her killing stroke.

It was a good plan, one Renar might even have praised were he thinking clearly, and then he was. He fell back, using his superior speed to escape the dwarf's plan.

Behind him, Asceli climbed to her feet with the spear still inside her. "Don't count me out just yet." Golden fluid dripped from the spear, and where it touched the ground flowers bloomed in dead soil. "I see now, I have little choice. I want you to know I love you, and I'm sorry."

"Asceli?" Renar spared a glance, just a short one, at his partner.

She ripped the spear from her body. She almost stumbled from pain, one of many things her regenerative power did not protect her from, her burden to bear. She held the weapon up, then thrust it into the ground.

Necromantic power burned away against the bubble of purifying light, air lit on fire by the opposing energies canceling one another out. Elruin screamed in agony when she discovered her power was lacking. Blinded and weakened by creation, it was all she could do to continue singing, to protect Calenda and Scratch, a desperate attempt to cling to what remained of the plan.

"Good job!" Renar encouraged as best he could, but he had to keep his eye on the dwarf. While he wouldn't consider the two of them evenly matched, he had to admit that a fight between them would not end before the rest of the battle was decided. If she was going to fall back, then he was willing to take the opportunity to recover in Asceli's healing power.

What nobody had expected was the second burst of magic Asceli fired at Elruin.

Elruin screamed again, but softer, for her lungs had yet to suck enough new air to vocalize her agony. She had never experienced such pain before, as nerves long dimmed by her necromantic power lit again. As if she had lived a life where all her circulation had been cut off, until now when it was restored. Her body lacked the experience, the neurological language, to understand what was happening. All it knew was that it was dying.

Renar jumped in front of Asceli, gripped her hand to prevent her from firing a third burst of power. "What are you doing!?"

From his position watching through the portal, Claron almost shouted the same question. Instead, he gave a command. "Open a rift for me. Now!"

Lemia, too, left her hiding place. She knelt in front of Ell, leaving her back as a target to Asceli. She wasn't worried, Asceli was using was pure creation energy; lethal to a true necromancer like Elruin, power traded for power in equal measure, but for most people it would be uncomfortable at worst.

"Killing that thing before it's too late!" Asceli pulled her hand out of his grip. Her next blast was blocked in part by Renar, and in part by Lemia, but even with two bodies to absorb much of the energy Elruin still shook in an agony she lacked the strength to voice.

"We're winning!" Renar tried again to capture her, but failed. Asceli was stronger and faster than him, a fact he never saw before. "We can capture her for Enge!"

Lemia fumbled about for solutions, before coming to the one answer that might work. She took a breath, then began to siphon power out of Elruin not unlike the vampiric magic Calenda was relying upon. Sapping creation energy was easy enough, but sapping it from Elruin carried numerous risks. She couldn't ask Cali to do it, without risking both of them dying.

"And then what? Do we let Claron have his 'divine' reward?" Asceli moved again, but now Ketak had joined in attempting to run interference. "I joined the Ghosts for freedom, not to trade one slave master for another! If Enge is going to turn a man like him into a god, then Enge i-"

She stopped speaking, and looked down at the blade coming out of her chest. It burned so hot that the healing energy that made up her blood boiled off of the metal. Her blood boiled, her flesh melted, and her bone turned to ash.

"No." The last word she heard was spoken by Claron's commanding voice. "I think that's quite enough of this farce."

=====

Claron makes for a great villain- willing to get his own hands dirty, but smart enough to send henchmen in first. Also, sorry for all the cliffhangers, but that's just how climactic scenes write themselves. Also, 2300 word chapter. That's quite enough, I think.

Renar and Asceli are both significant characters and ultimately recruitable along the Ghosts path. One of the few romances you'll see in this story, too. Renar, in particular, is a candidate for going undead voluntarily.

 

Suggested Listening

Claron watched the assembly of enemies to the empire. Of them, the only one he had any real respect for was the girl tending to Elruin. She, at least, had the mental faculties to continue trying to save the child while the others stood still. Since he needed her alive to fulfill Enge's command, they shared a tangential goal for the moment.

The rest stood there, watching him, rather than trying to overwhelm him with everything they had before he had a chance to get his bearings. It wouldn't have made a difference, nothing they could do had any hope of overcoming Enge's blessings, but even futile action deserved respect. "My apologies, did I interrupt something important?"

"Merat ne!"

Claron closed his eyes, when the series of explosive chemicals Renar relied upon went off in his face. Another might have considered the open betrayal to be more contemptuous than inaction, but Claron disagreed. At least betrayal was action, the act of a dishonorable warrior was better than the cowardice of a loyal boot-licker.

He drew upon his power, a whirlwind of flames blossomed around him and reduced the desolate landscape to ash. When his eyes opened, he stood in a circle of blackened glass. Renar, his few remaining soldiers, the undead, all gone. Only the dwarf remained to keep him company. He could have killed her with this attack as well, but that would risk destroying his prize, and with it his status as Champion of Enge.

"Still standing? I'm impressed." That she survived was little surprise; the entire dwarven bloodline was tied to forge magic. Once, he resented them for being born with the power he had to work so hard to attain. Then he pitied them, for they were lazy and ignorant of the value of training one's personal strength to its pinnacle. Now, they were irrelevant before Enge's blessing. "Are you going to fight?"

"No, I know when I'm beat." She slumped, used her overlong arms to hold herself up. Her glowing hot hands sank into the half-molten soil. "Will it disappoint you i' I don't make some speech about how I'll ne'er surrender?"

His chuckle was genuine. "That's quite alright." Meanwhile, he kept his good eye on Elruin, and the woman struggling to heal her. For all his power, he had no ability with healing magic. The Eye would restore his own flesh and magical power in the rare event that he suffered injury to begin with, but he could do nothing to stave off another's death.

More, the woman trying to save her was doing so with some exotic fundamental magics that felt rather fragile to him. Until that situation stabilized itself, he had no choice but to watch and wait. The opening salvo established his dominance, and now that none of them were likely to lead an attack that risked Elruin's death, he was content to bide his time.

Suggested Listening

"Ell, c'mon, you can make it." Lemia muttered as she made another cautious attempt to drain the excess power.

Everyone, even mages with those aspects, made the mistake of believing creation and negation were synonymous with life and death. This was not true, for life and death at the core was a fragile balance between all elements, more fundamental in nature than anything else. Treating an excess of fire aspect was not so simple as adding more water in spite of their opposing positions, no more than a man could breathe underwater if the water was boiling.

Right now, Lemia's problem was finding a way to drain off creation energies without running the risk of disrupting all other aspects of Elruin's already bizarre elemental balance. The usual solution of diluting the excess power and bleeding it off into the atmosphere was not an option, because creation magic had a nasty habit of sticking to itself, forming 'clumps' of magic. A great property if you wanted to create, but endless frustration for those trying to negate it.

At first, she tried to absorb the energy into herself, but that plan was dismissed in heartbeat. Elruin's native energy would kill any living thing, even those attuned to her. Meanwhile, the creation energy made it impossible to use any of the undead as a vent.

Then she felt it, the void in reality, bubbling just beneath the surface of this wound in the world. It couldn't be that easy, could it? In desperation, she took the other option, and began to force the creation energies in the direction which did not exist, into a place that was not.

To her surprise, it worked. The power vented... somewhere... to her perception it looked like it faded into nowhere, but without the telltale signs of dissipation into the environment.

Elruin gasped, taking her first proper breath in minutes, while Lemia continued to find the worst damaged spots and vent them out in as controlled a method as she could. It was sloppy, destructive work, but she felt confident that it would result in a full recovery.

Which, she knew, was what Claron waited for. She grabbed Elruin's violin and the dagger which served as a bow thanks to magic. "Ell, take them." She had to move Elruin's hands to the instrument. "It's time. We need you. Please."

Suggested Listening

Elruin trembled, forced herself to move with what little strength was left in her ravaged muscles. Lemia felt the distortion of her song on the fragile seams they stitched over the wound, as she undid the very thing she helped to build in the first place.

Lemia also felt it when Claron moved toward them. She cringed, knowing she was about to die. The plan had never been for her to be out on the battlefield, but she made that choice in order to save Elruin. At least she felt confident that her future zombie self would appreciate all the effort she'd been put in to maintain her figure.

Claron was uncertain of what the necromancer thought she could do in her current condition, but he knew he'd have to stop it. She seemed fond of her friends, so to him it seemed the best strategy would be one similar to his errant siblings. Capture the healer, and threaten her in order to make Elruin stop fighting.

He stumbled forward due to surprise and imbalance, more than actual harm, when a dwarf leapt on his back and tried to dig her claws into his throat. He jabbed his elbow back, hitting the hard steel scales of Ketak's stomach and sending her flying back. Her claws did draw blood, leaving six paper thin lines of crimson on his face and neck.

Ketak paid dearly for the minor damage she inflicted, her ribs broken and some internal organs bruised. The inch-thick steel plates had a dent in them. She was down, and Claron's next strike would have been enough to kill her, but he had other concerns.

The rift cracked, and the things on the other side spilled out. They had been drawn by the echoes of a reality as alien to them as their reality was to the people fighting on the other side. They had no understanding or care about the motives of these magic-rich things, they knew only their own desires, instincts built by long eons of evolution to survive within the void where starvation was the greatest of all threats.

The first three which broke through were greeted by a burst of magical flame hot enough to melt steel, but it was magic, and so to them it was pleasure and sustenance, strength which would allow them to persist for years in a realm that measured time as outcome rather than function.

Claron reacted swiftly to the realization that the things from the rift were not stopped by his magic, but he lacked the ability to explain why. He did, however, know someone who could. "How do I fight these things?"

"Top... Maj..." Uewatsu's message was broken, unclear. She felt a moment of surprise that would serve to amuse her through long years of boredom to come. She focused on the task at hand, and constructed a far more robust communication portal. "They. Eat. Magic."

"Why didn't you tell me before!" He drew back his power, in order to rely on his combat prowess. With a swipe of his sword, several of the monsters' limbs fell to the ground, twitching and leaking their ichor. Once he was granted his true status as Enge's Champion, he would need to reconsider his relationship with the rift mage. First, however, he had more pressing concerns.

They moved to engulf him, and he continued his steps backward, not falling back, but keeping his distance while he learned the strengths and weaknesses of these creatures. They were fast, and against a normal opponent they might be considered tough, but they were weaker than most chimera and possessed abysmal, swarm-like tactics more appropriate for a hive of bees than a large organism.

With each swing, step, and parry he took a limb. Blood loss caused them to slow and collapse. One fell, then another, then a third and fourth and fifth.

He was so caught up in the pressure of combat without the advantage of the Eye that he didn't spot the human threat from behind until the metal had pierced his spine, then twisted inside.

"Die!" Renar kept pushing, both the dagger and his whole body against Claron's back, to drive him into the beasts he seemed so keen on avoiding.

Claron reacted on instinct, flaring out with his magic to slay his former companion and drive the blade out. Too slow, for the thaumivore tendrils had fallen upon them both, and so his magic mutilated Renar, but failed to kill him.

Now wounded and covered in the magic-sapping creatures, it was all Claron could do to hack away at them, taking one limb at a time until they began to weaken and die around him. He stumbled from the pile of corpses, wounded and exhausted, but alive.

Elruin now stood on wobbly legs, still playing her violin, but now it was just the pair of them. He allowed the Eye's power to return to him and begin the slow, agony-wracked process of mending his wounds.

"It was a good trap, but it's over now. You lost." Claron walked toward her, knowing full well that he couldn't run without ripping his healing wounds open again, an act which was potentially fatal with a death mage so close. Even a Champion of Enge had limits. "Surrender now, and I'll have no need to continue hurting your allies."

The healer stepped in front of the girl. "How 'bout you cut off your own dick and sit on it?"

Claron said nothing. He wondered why he expected any decorum from those who would work with abominations. His flesh continued to stitch itself together, gaining in speed as the worst damage was undone and it began work upon the superficial. More confident, he began a swift march toward the two standing mages.

The ground beneath his feet erupted in an explosion of mud and stench of sulfur and tang of incense. His eyes burned, and he coughed on the poison now seeking its way into his body through his lungs. The Eye of Enge took its 'attention' away from the remaining wounds in his back, and began the process of fighting the deadliest herbal toxins the wilderness had to offer.

The mixture had been measured for the maximum possible slow and long term harm in mind. Several ivies for their contact poison, wolfsbane to disrupt regeneration, and ten times the lethal dosage of hemlock, for certainty's sake.

That Claron remained standing, that the worst side effects of this brutally lethal chemical weapon was coughing and eye irritation rather than seizures, coma and death was testament to the magic protecting him. Magic which had been severely drained by the thaumivores.

Then, finally, Calenda got her chance to act. She pounced upon the wounded, blinded, poisoned and exhausted Claron and grabbed for his face, then began to sap energy away from him, while doing her best to pull the Eye of Enge from its place in Claron's skull. If she could disrupt contact for a mere moment, the damage inflicted on him would be lethal.

Claron knew this as well as they did, and he still had power and speed to surpass Calenda. He grabbed her arm, pulled it away from her face, and tried to pull her off of him entirely.

Necromantically augmented biology, driven as far as Elruin could push her, proved inferior to the Eye of Enge. Calenda screamed when her forearm snapped like a dry twig. Grunted when an elbow smashed her ribs much like it had Ketak, but unlike Ketak Cali did not require her organs for survival.

Elruin stopped her song. "Stop hurting her!"

Claron noted the cry, but he couldn't afford to not fight back against this zombie which was sapping what precious strength he had left. He hammered her again, busted her other arm, smashed her skull, and once he got an arm free he swept the blade across her torso.

She fell to the ground in five separate pieces, her necromantic pattern flickering, then Claron brought his sword back around to deliver a final strike.

Elruin screamed with inarticulate rage, tears dropping as she ran for the only family she had in this world. This was Claron's plan from the beginning, even if he hadn't realized he could use one of the undead to achieve it until that moment.

He caught the flailing, foolish child by the arm, batted her stiletto away, and then with a short series of practiced twists, had both the necromancer's arms pinned behind her back. He didn't want to damage her any more than he had to, for fear that shock would be enough to finally kill her. "Come with me!"

Elruin stared down at the dismembered Calenda, while Claron began to drag her away. Calenda needed help, needed her help, or the necromantic structures would shatter and she would be lost forever. "Let me go!"

Claron didn't waste his time dignifying her demands with a refusal.

Then the scream changed from desperation to unforgiving rage. The solid black of her eyes spread outward, across her face, down her neck, over her clothes, every inch of her body bled necromantic power.

Frost spread across Claron's fingers moments before they shattered from the cold. He stared down at the child for the brief moment with his one good eye as half his body froze while the other half burned. All the heat of his body forced away from the necromancer until it erupted from his back. He dropped dead, not comprehending where it all went wrong.

Euwatsu, still watching the show from the privacy of her secret chambers in a hidden corner of the empire, began to giggle and clap her hands. "So soon!"

Then she stopped, remembered herself, and the lives lost this day. Claron had died doing what he believed to be right, but she knew from experience history would not remember him as such.

She bowed her head. "Claron was a good man, a hero, and his death is a tragedy. The greatest of all tragedies that he was born to this world which needs monsters, not heroes. He will be remembered longer than he can know."

She dismissed the portal, set the Eye of Enge down on her desk, and sat in her chair. Then she allowed herself to cry. She was indirectly responsible for more deaths than she could keep track of, but this was only the second time she inflicted the killing blow.

Moments later, she smiled again and jumped back to her feet. There was far, far too much work to do, and for the first time in a long time she was excited to see what came next.

=====

Yeah. A lot of people really wanted Claron dead. How could you tell?

Funnily enough, Claron's also an ally in the Ghosts path. Or, a potential ally and father figure for Elruin, at any rate. He never becomes a recruit option, but Ell can absolutely help put him on the throne (in which case, he replaces the king and queen during Act 3), or assist Renar and Asceli in their plans to stab him in the back. It's a major choice of that path.

I kinda like imagining a player completing one path of the game, then going back and playing through another path, only to find that the people they came to know and love, or love to hate, all switch roles. Then the player has to kill former friends.

Not all of them in quite the matter of killing Claron. Hemlock is a brutal poison. Also incredibly common. Know all those large white discs of flowers you see growing in rural ditches? Kinda smells like carrot leaves? That's hemlock. Don't eat it. Or smoke it. There are less horrible ways to commit suicide out there. All of them, for example.

On a minor side note, I have had to tell every spellcheck I've ever used that "ichor" is a real word.

On a more important side note... don't expect an update tomorrow, possibly for the whole weekend. I got a massive amount of work to do around here IRL, and I'm going to need to make my voters vote on a number of different things before I can get to work on the epilogue of Act 2 and starting chapter of Act 3.

 

Suggested Listening

The moment Claron fell, Elruin stumbled to Calenda. "You can't die." It was a whisper, a command, perhaps the first prayer the girl had made with complete sincerity in her life. What power she had left went to her song, bolstering Cali's energies as best she could. Next, she extended her power to all of the necromantic energy remaining on the battlefield, the tainted corpses of the butchered undead, the taint that remained from the dollies which Claron incinerated, and what residual power remained in the stitched fabric of the void hole.

It was energy enough to restore the dying spark of power tying Cali together. Then Elruin stopped singing, grabbed Cali's arm, and stuck it against the stump just above her elbow. "Don't worry, you'll be okay. I'll fix you."

"Ahh!" Calenda hissed in agony as her arm began to restitch itself to the rest of her flesh, a process forced along by Elruin's magic.

"Sorry, I'm doing the best I can." Elruin kept humming as she warped Cali's flesh, melding it back together on string of sinew at a time, and began the process of fusing the bone. Now that the limb was reconnected, the necromantic glove would be able to supply some minor amount of strength. Elruin reached for the other limb.

Calenda smiled. "Don't know what you're talking about, I feel fine." Perhaps the most obvious lie of her life. The nerves still attached to her were working, but the same could not be said of the pain-ignoring process the body used to put itself in shock. "Gah! Okay, but I can say I've been through worse." That much was true, though it hadn't happened often.

"The next part will be worse." Calenda had been bisected along the stomach, and now that meant Elruin had to go through the process of stitching all of that back together. "Sorry."

"Hey, you're not the one who cut me in half." Calenda grit her teeth in agony as the process started with her spine, then worked itself forward. "Make him apologize!"

"Too busy being dead to apologize," Claron said. "HAH! You should see the look on your faces! If you weren't already dead, I bet you'd have shit yourself!"

"Scratch!" Cali clenched a ball of claylike soil, then chucked it as best she could at Scratch's new puppet. She impressed herself with her aim, with a solid blow to his face.

The puppet smacked his lips, an act which resulted in some of the mouth to break apart, dangling chunks of frozen flesh held on only by some small amount of pliable skin. "Mmm, tastes like my last girlfriend." He waited a moment. "Speaking of, I just found the reason Claron was an insane egomaniac. Specifically, it's what I didn't find." He gestured at his crotch with both hands. "Unfortunately, I've already shown you one void hole today, and I don't do repeat performances."

"You degenerate reject!" This time, Cali found a rock in the dirt, and with a combination of skill and luck, she hit him in what passed for the good eye. "You didn't defy death! It took one look at you and left you behind!"

"That may be, but I've some experience in how walking corpses deals with pain," he said as he turned away. "Getting angry works a whole lot better than trying to stay calm, as you now know."

Cali hesitated, then looked down at where a line of natural tan now bisected her cosmetics-paled skin. "Huh."

Suggested Listening

"You're welcome. Now come help me deal with the trash, you're the only one equipped to do it right." Scratch gestured at the man who'd led the attack on their group. As of this moment, Ketak had him pinned to the ground, her steel claws pressed into his back. "Speaking of, we got a lot to planning to do now that Claron is gone and we've caught one of the Ghosts' other commanders."

"Claron's dead, we won, what's left?" Lemia asked.

"Do you think because the enemy general dies that his army magically vanishes? That they all surrender, knowing they face executions?" Scratch was finding it far too easy to exploit Claron's deep, booming voice in making his points. "What lazy hack writers have you read? Because real life don't work that way."

"Hey, I'm an alchemical scholar," Lemia said. "When it comes to war, I'm supposed to build the weapons, not fight the battles. So, what does happen, now?"

"It's going to be a mess," Cali said. "Cities that will need to be sieged out. More innocent people are going to die in reclaiming our cities than were lost when Claron invaded in the first place. Fortunately, we have one of their commanders."

"Just kill me and get it over with, abomination." Renar didn't bother to look up. "Claron restructured our entire command system, now that he's dead there is no clear succession. The Ghosts are lost, Asceli is dead. You've won. And we both know I've seen too much to live. I think you owe me a clean death after I helped save that necromancer from Claron, or did your honor die with the rest of you?"

"Honor, he says." Scratch crossed his arms. "Eh, this ain't my play."

"Does he know anything we can use against the bad people?" Elruin asked. "You can make him talk, right?"

Calenda looked at Elruin. It was true, if he spoke to an Inquisitor, or almost anyone outside of this select group, it would spell disaster. Torturing him would also be a waste, and not something she wanted to do. "He's too good for my brand of Truthsaying, best I can tell is that I can't tell, and torture is useless without magic to prevent lying. Scratch, want to take a new puppet?"

"Sorry, he's outside of my power as well," Scratch said. "And I'm afraid he'll explode while I'm inside him. I promise it's less fun than it sounds."

"Lucky you, quick death it is." Calenda knelt in front of Renar. She gripped his head with both hands, and used the vampiric shard to the fullest extent. Pain and pleasure blended inside her as the basic repairs cobbled together by Elruin were replaced with fresh, healthy, undead flesh. For a few brief moments, her heart beat again.

Elruin looked down at the corpse, then began to sing to it. Flashes and concepts, longing glances he made toward Asceli when she wasn't looking, a hope for a better future than the one he had grown up in. She ignored those distractions, pushed deeper, sang of his friends and made his remains sing back. "They have a teleporter," she said. "An old lady. Uewatsu?"

Claron's body laughed.

"You know her, corpse?" Lemia stared at the maimed, bloodied eye sockets of a dead man that stood a full two feet taller than her.

"I know the organization she works for, or I can make a good guess. And as a preemptive note, they're either insane, or are better at pretending to be insane than anyone I've ever met. They're trying to save the world."

"Entek ne," Calenda muttered. "I've had enough of these crazy cultists who think they can make a better world by the power of happy thoughts."

"Oh, you wish," Scratch said. "No, these guys are full-on deepest end of the death cults that other death cults call crazy. They believe the world is broken, and the only way to save it is by killing it, and by extension everyone on it. And every time anything starts to look like it's going in what most would call a good direction, here they come to kick it all down again."

"Three above, four below," Lemia said. "Do you have any proof?"

"You're the scholar, I bet you can find the patterns better than me. I've seen the aftermath of their 'projects' over the centuries. Seems like they find any empire that gets too big or stable, then set about sabotaging it from within. Fan the flames of rebellion, get them to destroy themselves. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe empires inevitably tear themselves apart. I am paranoid, and proud of it, but I have been known to jump at shadows on occasion."

"More than half of their forces are in Arila," Elruin said. While Scratch talked, she'd continued her violations of a dead man's privacy. "All the strongest ones are still in the city. They're weaker than they pretend, which is why they needed Claron."

"Let's worry about that," Calenda said. "Suicide conspiracies which might not exist are secondary to an occupying army. I can make it back to Arila by nightfall, hopefully before they reorganize from Claron's death."

"You think you can kill all of them?" Ketak asked.

"No, I may be stronger than ever before, but I'm not that strong," Cali said. "But I'm not the one they have to be afraid of."

"Gluk." A sickly wet noise popped from Claron's throat as the flesh of his esophagus collapsed inward as a squishy mess. Scratch poked his head out of his borrowed chest. "About time for me to ditch this body. Nice while it lasted. Speaking of, sarite. I'm guessing they're good if he only had two." He handed off a couple crystals to Lemia, then Claron's corpse collapsed like a marionette with the strings cut.

"Oh, right, and the of Eye of Enge, no idea where it went or how to find it." Scratch said in his native form and voice. "I guess it was magicked to vanish when the user died. Or maybe it fell into the void, in which case it's gone forever."

"That's a problem," Cali said. "Okay, we need to take Claron's body as proof he's dead. And his armor. I'll take the armor to Arila, but someone needs to deliver the body to Sonhome, keep an eye on it until the Engewal's royalty can send someone to pick up the body, and investigate the death site. Expect all sorts of Inquisitor nosiness."

"I suppose I'll deliver the message to the queen. Always wondered what it'd be like to have royalty singing my praises." Lemia said. "I've got some experience dodging Truthsayers, and I'm pretty confident I'm strong enough to prevent someone from reading my mind without my awareness. But, should I show them the battlefield?"

"They won't find anything here," Scratch said. "Long as Elruin clears the taint, maybe even if she doesn't. Void plays havoc on sensory magic. Worst part's going to be you having to swear in all conceivable directions that we didn't keep the other Eye of Enge. I doubt even the gods know where it is now. I know I haven't the first idea."

"Is it safe to tell Engewal about the void-holes? These seem like the sort of thing the military would take advantage of."

"As if they could," Scratch said. "Only a void mage can do anything with void holes other than get themselves killed. Tell them the truth, that you had a local guide of Fey origin who told you where to find the hole, and how it could be used to beat Claron. Lured him here with promises of Elruin delivered by morks. Then a lot of people died to kill him."

"Fey origin?" Lemia looked at the insubstantial inky ghost.

"Okay, a local guide claiming to be of fey origin, if that helps. Which is what I am doing right now, claiming I was fey once upon a time. Everyone knows we're fickle and impossible to predict and you can't trust anything we say or even our appearance. Keep asking me more questions on the subject and I'll keep lying until you give up. I'm also a dragon and God of the Sacred Phallus. Tell them I said that, too."

"Ugh, I get the point," Lemia said. "What else?"

"See if you can get bribes out of them."

"It's not a bad idea," Cali said. "But don't act like you want anything. It's... one of those royal traditions. Talk about how happy you were to help, and how all you want is to return to school and live in peace. In effect, the first noble you accept a personal gift from wins the competition. Whenever they offer, suggest that instead of rewarding you, they provide supplies to help those suffering after the rebellion. They love that sort of humility."

"Are you sure this isn't just you manipulating me?" Lemia crossed her arms. "Sounds an awful lot like what you'd say to trick me into giving up my just rewards."

"Well, you could take an offer," Cali said. "But then you have a noble family which has marked its territory on you. You've been bought, at whatever price you get for yourself. Or hold out, and your value keeps climbing. Maybe you get a noble scion husband out of the gig. I never took anything from them, and I had Lord Garit doing everything in his power to marry me. Technically, he succeeded. Then I killed myself."

She said it with a smile, but it was a weak one. Somewhere inside her now-cold body, she felt pain at the loss of the life she had, and the future that might have been. She made the right decision, of that she had no doubt, but some part of her yearned for a path where she could have had her freedom, and the stability which Garit represented. He would make a fine husband and a wonderful father some day, and now all possibility that she would see that day was gone.

"Not so different than my last career, then," Lemia muttered. "I'll take your advice under consideration, but I am for sale with the right price."

"Speaking o' price," Ketak said. "I presume 'is means 'e end o' our alliance?"

Cali looked over at the dwarf. "Umm, it looks like it. Not forever, but for the time being. We have responsibilities to our home. You'll want your share of the sarite, I presume."

"No, I got one better." Ketak lifted the very weapon which bisected Calenda not long ago. "Dwar'en work, per'ect set o' magic 'or a goblin hunter. I don't know where he 'ound it, but I want it back."

Cali sighed. "I'd give you the same speech I gave Lemia, but it doesn't apply to nonhumans. We'll just have to apologize and say you insisted and we had little ability to refuse under the circumstances."

"Hey, if you don't mind associating with a Fey guide, I'll stick around," Scratch said. "Everyone else is going to be in the cities while I have to wait around outside, and killing goblins sounds like a good time. Also, you have a better chance of getting messages to my associates than I do if an emergency pops up."

"Ell, can I talk to you for a second in private?" Lemia pulled the girl by the sleeve of her training uniform. It was a testament to their quality that the clothes survived the trials they had been through.

"Okay." Elruin let herself be guided while Cali did the work of dividing resources between them and determining who'd take what with them.

"How did you do that ice spell? Can you do it again? Or any other ice magic?"

"I think so." Elruin tapped into her depleted reserves. As it wasn't a combat situation, she used the weakest variant she could and took time to keep it as inexpensive as possible.

"But I know you use time magic, and I've seen you use rage magic from time to time. And now you have ice magic as well. How?"

Elruin hesitated. "I don't know." She considered the song she heard, and could not for the life of her determine how she accomplished the use of ice magic in spite of not being able to before, and the assertion of all scholars that having direct access to more than three aspects was impossible.

"During the battle, I was looking for a weakness in Claron's powers, some aspect of death that could counter the magic flowing from him." She thought back to the battle, and the defenses and healing Claron relied upon. "It was fire, with blood and rage aspects that I think came from his equipment. I couldn't stop him, none of my spells were more than an inconvenience against him."

"One of his sarite was designed for the sole purpose of countering necromancy," Lemia said. She held up the crystal which would have been a beautiful counter to Elruin even an hour ago. "I think he trusted his natural fire and earth aspects to protect him from your other abilities. He must have learned what you could do from someone at the school."

"I felt so helpless, so weak, and then he started to hurt Cali." Elruin drew closer to herself. "I don't know how, but something fell into place, and I could hear the song most suited to end him."

"Which you still remember, like your other aspects?"

"Yes." Elruin looked down. "It's new magic, I think I'll need to practice it if I want it as strong as my other spells."

"We'll need to look into that, when we have time." Lemia put a hand on Elruin's shoulder, offering what comfort she could. "For now, you should keep your new aspect secret. Right now, anyone who tries to protect themselves from your magic is in for a nasty surprise. Better keep it that way."

Elruin nodded at the sensible suggestion. "Alright."

=====

... Scratch is in no small part inspired by a certain character from Planescape: Torment. You know the one. The 90s truly was the golden age. Don't get me wrong, there have been damn good games from other eras, but never so many in such a narrow span of time.

Turns out, this is going to be a longer epilogue/next prologue than I expected.

 

Suggested Listening

Lemia tried her best not to stare at Engewal's fortified entrance, but she had never witnessed such splendor before. Save, perhaps, the city-in-the-branches of Sonhome. What did they use to make white walls for a city this size? It couldn't be direct magic, such an expenditure of power to cover a city this size would be detectable from the other side of the planet. A pity Ketak stayed behind, she should have more expertise on the subject. Or was it racist to assume that because she was a dwarf, she'd know about stone construction?

"The stone is from the ash of Emperor Enge, coupled with sand and limestone," their guide said. "Crafted through techniques taught to our ancestors. Then, as now, our god provided for us."

Lemia offered a lopsided smile at the woman dressed in the finery of a royal guard. Her blue hair was short, kept in the style of a military commander, which reminded Lemia to some day ask Cali why she kept her hair long. "Was I that obvious?"

"I can tell you're the scholarly type, if that's what you mean," she said. As usual, she was brusque, and bordered on the impolite. "However, it is part of my duty to tell all guests of the city about our blessed walls."

Lemia chose to bite her tongue; there was nothing that could be gained in asking one of the highest ranking officials in the empire why she had such an attitude problem. Instead, she turned her attention to Elruin. "Ell? You're doing it again."

The black energy of Elruin's magic leaked from her eyes like fire as she watched the walls. "Sorry." Elruin blinked, her eyes returned to their new normal. It seemed the whites of her eyes were now black to stay. "I can see why Claron was afraid to attack Engewal directly."

"Assuming the claims that this pretender to the throne was, indeed, Lord Claron. You haven't provided much evidence."

Again with this insistence that he was a pretender? Lemia bit her tongue, for there was no right approach. Of a greater concern than the conversation was the fact that there were multiple soldiers with them, some of the best Engewal had to offer, and all of them were nervous about the child necromancer with black eyes. It struck her as unlikely that they were a match for even one of them without special preparations.

"Ylasa, sister, I feel you should add context." The male lead of their honor guard interjected. He bore a strong resemblance to his sister, a strong, tall man with somewhat effeminate features which Lemia found more attractive than she wanted to admit.

He addressed his sibling in order to question their guests, maintaining the standards of polite society. "They cannot know the disruption caused when we heard the rumors that our half-brother, or an impostor claiming to be him, lead the Ghosts of Sorvel. Nor could they have realized that we were sent to identify the body, and mayhap we could have been spared some suspense if we were informed he was maimed to unrecognizability in a zone of distorted magic. I'm sure the lost Eye of Enge weighs heavy on your mind as well."

"What Weran said." Ylasa didn't so much as look at them.

Lemia could tell there was significantly more beneath the surface there. "If it is any consolation, the artifact wasn't one created by Enge. At best, it was a tribute. At worst, a forgery. Either way, no true treasure of the Emperor."

"Oh?" Ylasa still looked forward, but she appeared to relax. "What makes you believe that?"

"The fact that we're standing here," Lemia said. "We suspected from the beginning, when the dryad of Arila defied him, and none of the priests received the divine message of a Chosen having arrived. But the proof is that we, a handful of mortals, could overwhelm the pretender. Our traps and the warped magic zone did most of the work, but it could never have been enough to defeat Enge's power. So I must believe our victory is proof that Enge was not aiding the pretender."

"So it would seem, on the surface," Ylasa said. "But there is much that doesn't make sense. That the pretender died to the hand of the very child he claimed he wanted to slay in Enge's name."

"I'm no theologian," Lemia said. "Nor a military scholar. I claim little knowledge of the inner thoughts of generals, and would not dare question the mind of a god."

"Sister, please, you cannot expect they would have answers even Lady Nalet na Enge could not provide? We will have to rely on our exorcists and inquisitors to take the information from the pretender's remains."

"They will fail," Elruin said. Then she realized she was looking at Weran instead of Ylasa. "Sorry." She looked down with hands clasped together, as demure and quiet as possible. She would have to mind her manners better after her adventures in the woods.

"How can you know that?" Ylasa asked. She chose to take advantage of the child's improper behavior to interrogate her some.

"We used a lot of magic to attack him," she said. "When I killed him, it was with the strongest necromancy I could use, then I kept using it on him even after he died, to be certain he could never be brought back again. There is nothing left for an exorcist to find." It was true, even if she left out that the one who did most of the heavy lifting was Scratch.

Lemia put her hand on Elruin's shoulder. "Maybe we should save this conversation for when we meet with the queen's advisors." These people were nervous enough as it was, and each one was amongst Engewal's strongest. Worse still, the more Elruin talked, the more they might learn about her abilities, which could be a disaster. "We have a lot to tell."

"Very well."

Suggested Listening

Lemia could not have been more wrong. They were led to the palace, as expected, but instead of their 'honor' guard leading them to some isolated corner of the mansion where they would be interrogated for hours, they were greeted by the queen herself.

"Your majesty!" Lemia knelt, doing her best to imitate what Calenda did before, but she dropped to hard. The tingling sensation in her knee on down would have to be ignored for the moment.

"Please, stand. No need for formalities, call me Queen Amiris." She then smiled. "Well, I suppose there's some need for formalities. I would do away with them if I could, but even queens have their limits."

"Yes, Queen Amiris." Lemia stood slowly, trying her best to hide the newly created weakness in her leg. The regenerative sarite would help her along.

The queen looked at the young woman and child who helped deal the crippling blows to the rebellion. "You're the one who killed Lord Claron?"

"Mother, is it appropriate to..." Ylasa started to interrupt.

"Your father's not here," Queen Amiris said. "He may want to deny it, but everyone else in the kingdom knows the truth. Right now, he'll be with the body. Here's hoping he doesn't try something so foolish as resurrecting him. Such sentimentality is unbecoming of a king."

Whatever opinions they may have had on the subject, nobody present was willing to contradict the queen. Ylasa did speak on another matter. "The necromancer claims it won't be possible to resurrect him, and indeed all attempts to reach his soul will fail."

"Is that so?" Queen Amiris smiled when Elruin nodded. She would need to consult with her Archmage to determine how probable it was that a child would have power enough to block resurrection magic, but that was a task for later. "If true, you have done a greater service to the empire than you realize."

"M... Queen Amiris, if I may?" Lemia waited for confirmation. "Is there any danger that the king might retaliate against us?"

Amiris kept smiling. "You needn't worry, it simply means we'll need to maintain the official fiction that the pretender was impersonating Lord Claron. Perhaps he made use of illusion or shapechanging magic. Did you detect any such magic? Do you have means to do so?"

"We have some means to deal with certain illusions." Sensing traps in all conceivable directions, Lemia chose her words knowing there was a real chance that everyone in this hall other than Elruin and herself were Truthsayers. "However, I don't believe anyone in our team ever witnessed the official Lord Claron with our own eyes. How could we spot a fake if we never saw the original? I can swear with certainty we fought a tall, male, forge mage with blue hair and normal copper skin like most of ours. Elruin, did you notice anything that could sort him from anyone else?"

"No," she said. Remembering Scratch and the words he spoke, she elaborated. "I think I could tell if he was using magic to change his shape, so I don't think he was. Lady Calenda said I have a talent for sensing magic."

"Even without illusions, what you say describes thousands within the empire." Queen Amiris didn't try to hide the approval in her voice. "Forge mages are the most common bloodline we have."

"And if I'm honest, I can't swear he was even a forge mage." If the queen wanted plausible deniability, Lemia was willing to give it her best. Anything to keep an irate king from ordering their executions. "In the confusion of battle, it was impossible to determine where the man's power ended, and the artifact's began. It was more powerful than any artifact I have ever seen, including ."

"Which means thousands could be millions" The queen looked at those few escorts entrusted to be at this meeting. None of them showed an expression, but that was the sign that was given if the truth was being spoken. "That is an interesting theory, I shall pass it along post haste. For now, let us get you into dresses for the ball."

"A ball?" Lemia hesitated; the idea of Elruin in a social situation was hilariously bad. She latched on to what Calenda said of rejecting bribes and extracting charity for the victims of the war. "Are you sure it's appropriate to celebrate while there is a war going on?"

"You would be correct, but the war is over," the queen said. "Your Priestess Esra delivered the news to Arila, and the Ghosts were routed within the hour. Lyra's new keeper is far more proactive than the former. Once Arila fell and it became clear their pretender wasn't going to come to save them, the counter-rebellions were merciless and thorough. Those that did not flee are either dead or in our custody. It was a crushing victory. Now come along, people are desperate to meet the heroes of the hour."

So much for talking our way out of it. "When you put it that way, how could we refuse?"

=====

I recently learned concrete was invented either by the ancient Romans and/or Greeks (scholars aren't entirely in consensus, here) using volcanic ash. It seemed ever-so-appropriate to have that here. Tell me I'm wrong.

In one of the "battle against Claron" scenarios (specifically, the one where the team heads straight for Engewal), they get to interact more with the royal family and there's even the potential for courtly intrigues. Ultimately, one of the royal number- the king, by default- uses a different Enge artifact to fight Claron, and dies in the process. Which serves as the catalyst to weaken Claron to the point that he can be killed.

That's more viable with the "stealth/socialite" story route that my voters have shown no interest in pursuing... they like the "scholar" path. However, the socialite path wouldn't have resulted in gaining the "necrotempered leather" until later, and Elruin would have a smaller spell selection and weaker undead, if any at all (save Scratch... you have to go out of your way to not have him as a party member).

Otherwise, the final battle plays out much the same. It's just a question of which characters that may or may not be friends and/or enemies die.

No. Optimal. Paths. Just a game experience that molds to player decisions.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin stepped out of the changing room with her arms out, unwilling to touch the dress she suspected cost more than everything else she owned combined. The dark teal fabric became lighter as layers grew thinner toward the extremities. The billowing effect created the impression of a waterfall, or a fluffy and delicate flower. Elruin was afraid to use her lifesight, for fear even that minor use of magic would melt the gossamer cloth.

"Oh!" Lemia was already outside, having changed into her own red dress long ago. It, too, was comprised of numerous layers, but it held together in such a way that they draped off her shoulders in a manner that accentuated her generous figure as well as covering it, topped off with a red ribbon in her hair. "You're adorable! I want to hug you forever!"

Elruin smiled at the approval. "Don't, I'm afraid you'll break it."

Lemia gave Elruin a pat on the head. "Then I can wait. Besides, we should get going." She turned toward the demure maidservants waiting in silence. "I imagine being late to your own party is a faux pas.

"Please, this way," the older looking of the two said. Neither were near elderly, but both were years older than the two heroes they escorted. Soon, they found themselves coming around a corner into a large ballroom which was filling with people. They weren't first to arrive, but they were far from last, and they had people coming for them the moment the maids stepped aside so they could enter.

Lady Juna and Lord Garit were the first to greet their arrival. Elruin missed the subliminal social interplay which determined it would be them, while the others stayed back far enough to be out of eavesdropping range. Lemia, too, took a step back. This was clearly not a place she should involve herself in.

"I'm glad to see you're well," Juna said. "Look at you in that gown. You're the very picture of a fine young noblewoman. It brings me fond memories of the dances of my childhood."

"Dear sister," Garit said. "I seem to recall you destroying those dresses in ever more elaborate ways, such as convincing our playmates to set you on fire. Much to the dismay of our parents."

Juna's grin was mischievous, bordering on malicious. "As I said, fond memories."

Elruin couldn't take her eyes off the burn scar trailing down Juna's cheek and jaw, before it vanished beneath her clothes. "You're hurt." She risked her lifesight for a moment, confirming that there was depth to her injuries. She had to be in a great deal of pain, with wounds so fresh and raw. "What happened?"

"My traitor of a half brother..." Juna's cheerful act slipped for a moment. "But you needn't worry about me, it's a minor injury. In fact, I think I'll ask the healers not to touch the surface injuries. My face will bear carry the literal scars of our brother's betrayal, especially for our father. Let him look at me and be unable to forget what his favorite son did."

"Oh, wrathful and wondrous sibling, perhaps it's better to move on to other topics?"

"Ah, but of course, you were always better at pretending to be even-headed than I." Juna's smile returned, forced though it was. "My dear brother wanted to ask what became of his lost fiancée. Claron's people report she died, but other reports say you had a priestess with you, one calling herself Esra, who seemed familiar with matters of politic and war."

"When I heard, I thought perhaps Calenda found a way to fake her death." Garit pushed the limits of social acceptability, in talking as he was, but he could always say he was speaking to Juna rather than Elruin. "I don't know why she feels the need to hide, now that Claron is gone. If she's avoiding me, I want her to know I won't ask anything more of her."

"I'm sorry." Elruin brought her hands together. "Cali died from a magic weapon I built. Like Claron, she cannot be resurrected. Her last words were 'I choose to die on my feet.' She will be remembered."

Garit closed his eyes, lest they see him cry. "As in life, so too in death."

"Her absence will be felt by all," Juna said. "Which is the other reason we're here. This would be your first experience in royal court. You'll find many gifts and favors being traded about here, and we'd like to help you navigate the waters. Your position in the political order has become complicated. Between the death of Claron and the death of your mother, nobody's quite certain what to do with you."

"Nonsense! It's quite simple." An older woman approached. Her red hair might one time have possessed the same vibrant red as Calenda's, but it had faded. In spite of that and other changes brought on by the march of years, Elruin recognized her well before she introduced herself. "I am Lady Aster, Calenda's mother. That makes me your grandmother, and so you are secure within our house."

"Not as I recall." Juna's usual cheer carried a little edge to it. "My ever-so-studious brother, could you please confirm for me how the laws of succession apply in a situation such as this one?"

"The children of non-inheriting children have no claim of estate, unless their parent or parents are made to be inheriting at a later date." Garit's words were stated with a practiced neutrality, as if reciting to a class, or the instructor. "It's a textbook case of broken lineage. I'm afraid all claims Elruin has of belonging to your house died with Lady Calenda."

Lady Aster hid her displeasure a little worse than Juna managed. "Don't listen to them," she said to Elruin. "They both know claims can be established by any head of a royal house. Or re-established, as is this situation."

"Not without the approval of the recipient," Juna said. She smiled at Elruin. "Which, I suppose, makes it your choice."

Elruin didn't need to be asked, now that she knew Lady Aster couldn't do anything to punish her, like a real grandmother could. "You're a mean woman."

Lady Aster's mouth fell open for a moment, before she closed it, glared at Juna, then marched away without another word.

"I hope that won't come back to hurt us," Lemia whispered. "Antagonizing noble houses never leads anywhere good, in my experience."

"I wouldn't make a habit of it, but in this one specific situation I think you'll be fine," Juna said. "House Andara was never a major player, I dare say Calenda was the only member of the line with any true talent, and her betrothal to my brother their last foothold on the national level. It hasn't helped that Lady Aster lacks the political acumen, or basic human decency , of her predecessor. Asserting a claim on Elruin was their last visible opportunity to matter in our lifetimes."

Lemia looked at the back of the retreating noblewoman. "What happens to them, now?"

"The usual," Juna said. "They're still a minor bloodline, and nobody can take that away. Their best will rise to a certain extent in the Guard or priesthood. They'll continue marrying into lesser houses, waiting like the rest for an opportunity to take center stage again. But the night is young and there are many players still in the game."

Soon, a girl younger than Elruin, in a somehow even poofier dress, approached the group. She kept her head down, but held out a locket of woven gold. "Please accept our gift, in gratitude for stopping the pretender." The child spoke as if reciting lines, while behind her, a pair that must have been her parents watched.

As emotional manipulation went, it was as transparent as it was impactful, and all of it flew over Elruin's head. "If you want to give gifts, it's better to donate to helping those hurt by the war. There are people injured and starving who need it."

The child nodded, then returned to her parents as fast as her little legs could take her without tripping over her clothes. They seemed less than enthused when their daughter recited what Elruin said, but accepted it nonetheless.

"Good answer," Juna said. "You managed to refuse the gift without rejecting the house making the offer."

"We may have received some coaching," Lemia admitted. "Is this sort of thing common at these balls? And what's even the point?"

"It seems to me it is all we do, every time we have a ball," Juna said. "The point is that the more wealthy and powerful houses test the lesser, learn their measure, and try to out perform each other in buying loyalties. They'll offer gifts to one another as well, but as a rule the act of accepting a gift is seen as an admission of weakness. If you need to be given a gift, you're not good enough to earn it for yourself."

Lemia almost laughed, for this was a situation she had found herself in all too often. The difference being, the people she knew were more honest about their goals, and more violent in their methods. "You're very good at it, yourself." Lemia kept her eyes locked on Juna. "We accepted your help first, and now you're in a place where you can all but control who gets to make what offers to us. Even the major houses must admit you outmaneuvered them."

"And you are a fast learner." Juna showed not a hint of shame, bragging, or condescension. "I'm glad little Elruin has someone like you to watch her back, I can tell she's going to need you. As much as I loved Calenda, she wasn't much better at dealing with politics than her mother. The difference being, her mother loves politics and hates people, while she hated politics and loved people."

"I just find myself wondering what you get out of telling me all of this."

Lady Juna laughed. "If you had asked me that question six months ago, I might have finished explaining it to you yesterday. The simplest answer, I suppose, is that I don't care what the game is, I want to find someone who can beat me at my best. Go ahead, ask my brother."

"I'll take your word for it." Lemia focused on Juna, and avoided letting herself be distracted. "So, out of curiosity, what happens when you find someone who does beat you?"

Juna shrugged, then turned to look at the crowd. "I don't know."


=====

In the interest of getting a chapter out today, I've split Ch 59 in half. Other half will be posted tomorrow. Also, I missed the twins.

I've been learning lots about ancient Anatolian cultures. Apparently teal was their "little girl" color, the way pink is ours. At least, in some parts and times. I approve of dressing Elruin up like the adorable little girl she is, then giving her lots of headpats. If you don't agree, that makes you a terrible person.

If you're wondering what's with all the half-siblings... courtly politics are a mess. TL;DR, King Vars was born to a rather low-ranking family, but the genetic lottery came up in his favor- something nobody realized until he was quite a bit older. First wife died in childbirth, Claron being the only child (long story short- trying to carry a child with a powerful bloodline goes bad for the mother if she lacks suitable magical strength of her own). Second wife was the queen. Juna and Garit were the result of their mother needing heirs of her own, but her own husband was sterile and so they asked his brother do the job.

Political Eugenics, ain't it fun?

 

Suggested Listening

A number of offered gifts later, and the young heroines were beginning to find themselves growing comfortable with how best to redirect gift-giving into charitable assistance, between enjoying the drinks and watching the dancers perform.

"We'll come back to visit you later," Lady Juna said. "You are the centerpiece of this ball, but by no means the only concern." She knelt down to Elruin's height in order to speak to her directly. "And I promise I'll see you again, soon. I want to see how much stronger you've become."

Elruin clasped her hands together and nodded. "Be well."

They watched the pair leave before Lemia turned to face Elruin so that nobody else could see what she was saying. "Why didn't you tell me Lord Garit was so handsome? And his eyes! I thought I was going to die every time he looked at me!"

"He is?" Elruin tilted her head to look at Garit. "You were?"

"Oh, right, you're twelve," Lemia said. "Forget I asked. In fact, forget I said anything. And don't tell anyone else I said anything."

Elruin didn't get what was going on, but it didn't seem important, and they had other things to worry about. "Okay."

Soon, a young girl approached, as had happened a few times throughout the proceedings. Unlike most of those relying on the child ploy, this girl was older than Elruin, and the man she represented followed close behind. "Greetings. I am Runa." She clasped her hands and bowed. "My uncle heard you are students of the Order of High Thaumaturgy?"

"We are," Elruin said.

"She is," Lemia corrected. "I... may have burned some bridges before I left. I'll have to find a different line of work."

Runa looked back at her uncle, who smiled and nodded. She then turned her attention back to the pair. "My uncle is one of their alumni. He has lots of friends in the school, and knows all the teachers, if you need help. He also wants you to know he's helping the recovery effort by donating two healing runes, one to Arila and another to Danul."

Lemia almost swallowed her own tongue. "Two healing runes? How did he get two?" As a concept, runic magic was not difficult, a skill expected of all Archmages, but it was expensive due to the years it took to build self-charging magic artifacts that were stable and could generate a complex spell without human guidance. It was a labor requiring years from a master of the craft, but not as many years as it took to turn a human baby into a proper mage.

"Uncle makes them." Runa puffed up with pride. "Might you take them back to Arila when you go, it would ensure they get to their destination safely, and faster than we could make arrangements."

"I see." Lemia looked at the older gentleman with a more critical eye. He had the look of a scholar, a man who spent most of his life indoors with little natural light or exercise yet possessing of wealth and privilege. "It would be an honor and privilege to guard such works."

The scholar smiled, then tapped his niece's elbow. "We are glad they will help. We hope you accept our personal offer as well. I'm told the professors can be persuaded to look away from some transgressions, if one asks the right way."

Ain't that the truth. Lemia bit her tongue. "If someone knows the right way to ask Dean Meris not to have me arrested for running off with his prized magic sword, it would be appreciated."

"And access to the upper class labs?" Elruin asked. "It's hard to do important studies with all of the new students." That she was one of the new students was lost to nobody.

"I believe that can be arranged." Runa looked back for her uncle to give a confirming nod. She then clasped her hands together to show gratitude. "I'm glad we were able to help you as you've helped Engeval."

Elruin clasped her hands together in response. "As we walk."

Soon, another woman approached them. This one was unusual for being near Lemia's age, if perhaps a little younger. Too old to head a noble family, too young to be an adorable proxy for her elders. She was an attractive girl, with the telltale blue-toned hair of the upper class, though hers was a dark navy blue. "Greetings. I'm Prilla. I apologize for bothering you, I'm not here as a representative of a major house, but we heard you were a scholar?"

Lemia relaxed and smiled. "I wouldn't call myself a scholar yet, but perhaps some day."

Prilla smiled back, though still nervous. "I thought so. My brother, Orsol, was hoping to speak to you. As a potential suitor. He will understand if you refuse, we can hardly compete with some of the other houses, but if you value a partner who values knowledge, there is no finer in the kingdom."

Lemia looked in the crowd, and didn't take long to spot the young man who must be Orsol. He had the same deep blue hair as his sister, and when she looked his direction he hurried to look away. He didn't quite measure up to Lord Garit, but he was attractive, as all nobles seemed to be. The advantages of good breeding, easy living, and healing magic on demand, showed for everyone in the room. If he was the scholarly type, she could see herself enjoying his company. Until he learned anything at all about her past.

Elruin had other concerns to voice. "What about our research?" The nature of what their work would be focused on with Taint, Void, and an ancient map artifact. All of which held complex and dangerous secrets they couldn't afford to share with others, for reasons which varied from greedy treasure-hunters to zealous heretic-burners.

It was enough to push Lemia into a decision. She took a slow breath. "I'm sorry, Prilla, you're operating on a misunderstanding."

"It's fine, we knew it was unlikely you'd be interested." Priscilla began to turn away.

"No, that's not the problem. You're fine, and I'm sure your brother is as well, which is why you shouldn't waste your time on me. I'm nothing special. It was Elruin, Esra, and Ketak who did the fighting, while I was bookkeeping and finding useful herbs. I come from peasant stock, with a bloodline to match. I can't even claim virtue, I sold that to pay my way into school. A fact I'm sure it won't take long for the gossips to uncover. Better to keep your family name out of my history."

Prilla considered the implications of her statements. If true, it was best to deny ever having spoken to this woman for purposes outside polite expectation. "Your candor is appreciated." She raised her voice so the nearest people could hear her. "I'll make certain our family helps the recovery effort." Prilla then hurried to her waiting brother, no doubt to share the news that he asked out a prostitute.

Elruin watched the interplay, with no understanding of the subtext or what it had to do with donations. Donations were good, they're why she came to help in the court so why did Lemia seem so sad? "Are you hurt?"

"Nothing I hadn't expected," she said. "But for a second there, I thought I could pretend things were different, and I was different."

"Why would you want to be different? If you weren't you, what would you be?" Elruin squeezed Lemia's arm with her hand, the closest thing she could risk to a hug while wearing her fragile dress. "You're smart, and nice, and have lots of friends to help you."

Lemia smiled at the child who managed to be optimistic despite a laundry list of horrible events in her past. "You're right, no sense in worrying about it. If I hadn't made the choices I made, I would be in the slums, and if I met you at all, it would just be a glance in the distance."

As the evening wore on, gift offers gave way to preemptive promises to contribute to the recovery efforts to spare themselves the rejection. Such was the nature of the game, sometimes, that those who played their hands last had the advantage of learning from the failures of those who came before. In the end, only two of dozens had won specific favor, but only Lady Aster had been outright rebuked.

When the ball began to draw to a close, it was Queen Amiris who made the final move of the evening. Her outfit was purple and gold, with her husband next to her wearing silver and red in an opulent imitation of a military uniform. Everyone grew silent the moment they realized the situation.

"Esteemed colleagues, honored guests." Queen Amiris projected her voice well, and made no indication of which label applied to which attendee. "Today we celebrate victory, but with heavy hearts, for the loss of many good men and women. Friends, family, and strangers."

In the pause, the crowd responded. "They will be remembered."

"And we look into an uncertain future, knowing we face a time of rebuilding and healing both ourselves and our kingdom. In the name of that goal, I propose we acknowledge the heroes who stopped the pretender, by granting them titles befitting heroes."

"So say us both," her husband stated the moment she went silent. Even, perhaps especially, the queen had to follow social protocol about appearing to command the men in the audience. By giving his voice, it was now acceptable for her to continue.

"We shall grant them lordship, with all the prestige that comes with it. Do any here object?"

None did, for this was standard protocol. Many of them had witnessed these mud heroes be granted the title, to see them marry into a larger house in time. A lordship without a grant of property meant nothing, save the right to be known as Ladies. Their personal holdings were not at stake, for even the royal family could not grant property they did not own the rights to. Lady Aster might have tried, but she was not of a house in high enough standing.

Juna stepped up next to the pair, knowing the song and dance far better than the newcomers could. "I'd suggest you take the titles," she whispered. "Thank Queen Amiris. No need to kneel, not now."

Lemia took a breath, then stepped forward knowing everyone was watching her. "Thank you, your majesty. I... don't know what to say."

A polite series of nods were made throughout the hall, including by the queen.

"Now if you like, I can give that useless title some meaning," Juna said. "Still more token than value, but a place to start, and a House to call your own."

"Can you?" Elruin asked. As she understood it, a house title would require a claim of land ownership. A piece of property would be a great place to put their equipment, a private library and alchemy lab, and a home for her dollies. "I'd like that."

As if waiting for the signal, Garit spoke from the side of the room. "I believe my mother, Duchess Hida na Arila, has an announcement to make." He then leaned down, and began the process of aiding an older woman to her feet.

Duchess Hida was not an elderly woman, but she bore the stress of health problems which was beyond mortal magic to cure. The act of rising to her feet taxed her strength, and it was all she could do to ignore the pain in her abdomen. "I have instructed my son to make the announcement for me. Thank you." That was all she could do, before sitting down again.

Garit waited for his mother to be comfortable again before he delivered her message. "In honor of her service to Arila, in slaying the pretender, as a healer who aided the poor, and saving lives during the occupation of Arila, House Arila has chosen to bequeath a portion of its land, the section known locally as 'The Shelter', to Lady Elruin. And with it, the right to claim the status of Minor House."

Elruin looked wide eyed at Juna. "What do I do?"

"Well, you'll be expected to look after the Shelter. As the only ranking noblewoman with a connection to Lyra's new caretaker, you'll be expected to maintain positive relations with her. And within certain limits, it's up to you to determine how the Shelter is run from now on. In truth, it's a symbolic act, since the land has no taxable value and nobody expects Lyra or her priestess to hurt the city."

"What do I call my House?"

"Anything you want," Juna said. "Most name the house after a founding member, a favored line of a religious text, or an ideal to strive for. As long as you don't pick an existing House name, you can do almost anything. You needn't decide now, some Houses have existed for decades without choosing an official name."

Elruin didn't need time to decide. "House Cali."

"A fine ideal to live up to," Juna said. "I know she would have been proud to know you'd carry her name forward in such a noble manner, as I am proud to be the first to acknowledge Lady Elruin na Cali."

It was all Lemia could to not break out into laughter.


=====

Unlike Lemia, the audience is free to laugh as much as they like.


Oi vey... in the "outline" of the game, these last three chapters take up twelve total lines. Just "list of choices, outcome of choices"- and a couple "tags" for event chains in the future. In my disaster of a notebook. Each line has translated to almost 400 words at this point. The rest of the page covers what Lemia does if Elruin's not around to influence matters. Including a secret stat for Lemia's self-confidence in taking Orsol up on his offer. Which I have been tracking in the background.

Did I mention this game is going to be consequence heavy as fuck? Well, maybe not quite that consequence heavy. I mean, the consequence of fuck is potentially 18+ years of child support and/or HIV.

The difference between temporary and permanent runes is the difference between taking notes for a test, and writing an entire textbook. Technically they do the same thing, but one only covers one situation, while the other covers all of them. And, as with notes and textbooks alike, some are of higher quality and difficulty than others. Healing is amongst the most difficult.

... I admit, I was a little sad that the vote to discourage Lemia accepting her potential suitor. On the plus side, I love making my characters miserable, and everyone who hates romance subplots in fantasy stories can rejoice the dodged bullet.

And for the exactly nobody who asked what was up with Garit and Juna's seemingly invisible mother... now you know...

If Elruin didn't come to the party, Garit and/or Juna would have found her at some point back in Arila.

 

Suggested Listening

"You did WHAT!?" Calenda shouted loud enough to attract a glance from the people in the distance. That, or it was Lemia laughing nonstop as Elruin delivered the news. Cali chose to believe it was the latter.

"I got a House, and I named it after you," Elruin said. "Lady Juna said you'd be proud."

"Worst part of being dead," Cali muttered. "Everyone starts to imagine they can talk about what you would or would not have wanted. Funny how what they think you'd want is what they want."

Lemia managed to get her giggle-fit under control. "Look at it this way, you couldn't have asked for a more convincing method to tell everyone that you're no longer amongst the living. Your beloved adopted sister said you were dead point blank to Lord Garit and Lady Juna, while who knows how much lie detection magic was in the room, then to honor your memory she names her fresh-minted noble House after you."

"I would have preferred you turn down the titles in the first place. Didn't I tell you not to take gifts from the nobility? I meant all of them." She knelt down in front of Elruin. "I was trying to protect you from their world. Now that you've taken a title, that means you're part of their system, which comes with obligations. From now on, you'll be expected to show results to prove you're using your holdings well, oaths of loyalty. For you, in particular, that means they can and will make you serve the crown one way or another."

Elruin looked down. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize."

"Guess there's no point fighting the system, they always get what they want, and there's not much we can do about it now." Cali stood. "Now we need to plan what to do with your so-called estate." She made a gesture at the ramshackle assortment of buildings.

Elruin looked around. "I was told I have to talk to Erra. Lyra's my responsibility, too, since she built her tree on my land."

"It seems the gods of fate are determined for you to lead an interesting life." Calenda chuckled. "Let's go find Erra."

As they walked, Elruin asked a question that had been bothering her for a time. "Umm, what's a wolf?"

Cali's face scrunched in thought while she walked. "I don't know. I think they're some sort of giant rat monster, but I've never seen one. In old myths, they hunt in swarms and eat livestock, or even people when they get a chance."

Suggested Listening

Before they made it to the tree, Lyra came out to meet them. She flitted down from the tree and touched the ground like a leaf. Cali stepped back when Lyra looked at her. Lyra sniffed the air, then ignored her and went straight to Elruin and dropped a pile of small white crystals in front of her. They resonated with life energy, condensed and contained in shards that were not sarite, but served a similar function.

"Oh, the crystals we found with the monsters..." Cali trailed off when Lemia reached back into her hair and withdrew three black balls of fluff. "Those. Don't get too close, they're more dangerous than they look."

"They're so adorable it hurts." Lemia stepped forward, only to jump back when the tiny furballs looked at her, their eyes glowing like hellfire. "Gah!"

They squeaked at her, with a deeper tone than one would expect for such small animals. Fragments of fear magic emanated from their shared song, not enough to overcome Lemia's resistance to magic, but she didn't need active magic to make her wary of the unnatural beasts.

Meanwhile, Lyra began handing them all off to Elruin, who scratched one's neck while the other two climbed up her arms. "Aren't they cute? What are they?"

"I don't know, but we found them in the rafters of a barracks that Claron's people set up in. We tried to burn the nest, but Lyra's taken a liking to them. They have some nasty darkness oriented magic, drives people insane, and then they, well, harvest them."

"Harvest?" Lemia began using her own magic to observe the animals. These babies weren't much, but she could see how the magic clung to them and transfused their bodies. Insidious stuff which would over time warp the native aspect of the environment into what appeared to be a rage-oriented elemental state, which might drive people insane without any direct action on their part. As they grew, so too would their strength. If they retained a natural squirrel's reproductive rate, they could become a serious threat.

Then she realized what the pile on the ground was. "Are those eyes?"

"They were." Cali inched toward the pile of crystallized human eyes. "Infused with life energy extracted from Claron's dead soldiers. Near as I can tell, this is what they eat. Two died before we figured that out."

"Oh," Elruin sounded sad. "Poor babies." She looked down at the pile of eyes, observing the condensed and chained life force being used like fertile soil to grow into the necromantic energies the squirrels fed on. She could do that. She began to hum, and drew her well of power into a cupped hand, as if holding a small pool of deadly black fluid. Soon, the three surviving babies came down to the 'pool' and began to lap away at the energies.

Lemia shuddered when she realized there must have been thirty eye-crystals in the pile, then true horror dawned on her. "Uh, tell me I'm imagining that magical undertone."

"I thought the same thing, but without having her nearby I couldn't be certain. And now I was hoping you'd tell me I was wrong. Or at least could explain to me why these things have Elruin's resonance all over them."

Lemia swallowed, considering her training. Hybrids and chimera were not her specialty, but she'd taken a class on the subject. "Well, it's possible for magic to infuse into living things, causing spontaneous conception. It's... how spirits sire demigod offspring in the first place. But it's unusual, especially if it's not deliberate, but it is known to happen. Ell, what did you do?"

"I made a squirrel help me kill the bad men Claron sent," she said. "It did a really good job."

"Does this mean you're taking them away?" Erra stayed a safe distance away from the fuzzy harbingers of madness and death, even though they seemed docile enough and Lyra would slaughter anything which was a threat to her.

"We'll figure something out," Lemia said. "But if Elruin keeps them fed, I don't think they'll have a reason to hurt anyone. Magic chimera tend to be smarter than their origin species, too. Maybe they can even be trained."

Elruin smiled at them. "I'm a squirrel mommy!"

"I tried to get Lyra to get rid of them, but she just put them in her hair and acted like that was enough." Erra inched closer, not taking her eyes away from Elruin's new pets. She feared she was being rude to the girl who had done so much to help them, so she tried changing the subject. "I heard you helped kill Lord Claron, and then went to the capital?"

Suggested Listening

"I have a House, now!" Even as she spoke, Elruin continued to provide supernatural nourishment to her new pets. "I have to make sure you and Lyra behave."

"She means we were granted honorary noble titles." Lemia may have been speaking to Erra, but she couldn't take her eyes off of the squirrels, either. The things were somehow even more unnerving than their accidental creator. "And House Arila gave her the Shelter as an official holding. Seeing as your tree mansion is here, we need to talk."

Erra looked around. "I'm sorry, I've still not found much time to study noble protocol."

"You can join my House!" Elruin stepped toward Erra. "I named it House Cali, after my big sister."

Erra stepped back. "That's actually quite touching. I'm sure Lady Calenda would be proud if she could see you now. I think it would be nice to help honor her memory."

Meanwhile, a few feet away, Cali wondered if it was possible for a dead woman to develop a nervous tic. "As Lyra's keeper, it's better than you don't join. Lady Elruin has attracted quite a lot of attention lately, and the church feels safer if Lyra is seen as theirs, rather than belonging to any specific noble house. Officially, of course. Unofficially, we'll have to work together a great deal if we both want to stay here and make the Shelter a better place for everyone. But, well, you're the one with the real power here. It may be Elruin's estate, but it's your home, and as we've seen, there's no force in Arila which can make Lyra do anything she doesn't want to."

Erra relaxed. "So, what were you going to do with your new estate?"

"We can make a farm!" Elruin slowed her feeding of her new pets, now that they seemed to be going to sleep in her palms. "With lots of nice crops to feed the city and make everyone happy."

"A farm, without any animals to work it or space enough to feed said animals, or ability to stop people from sneaking in during the night to steal the nonexistent animals and crops." Calenda sounded less than enthused.

"Actually, it might work," Lemia said. "Can't do much about animals, but with Lyra and some botanical magic, we could get something decent going. Let anyone try to steal food meant to support the poor within the nonviolence field. Or just let these squirrels play in the fields, that'll scare 'em off. And if we drop the 'food' crops for alchemical plants, it might even be profitable. As long as Lyra's around to boost growth speed."

Elruin looked at Lemia. "I thought you said farming here would be bad because it would drive away the community."

"It would have," Lemia said. "But Claron made a bigger mess than the farm ever could have. When the chaos settles down, everything will have changed. With our help, maybe we can make that change be for the better."

"I don't know how well it would work, but at least you'll have something to show your chosen overlords that you're trying." Calenda sighed, then looked out at the shanty town rebuilding itself amongst the temporary blockades which Claron's people built. Either moving into the shacks, or tearing them apart for construction material.

"Would a hospice be an option?" Erra asked. "We have so many who can't make their way to the wealthier part of the city where they build the respite houses."

"That could be done," Cali said. "Or a small chapel, which would all but obligate the church to station a handful of the priesthood here permanently. Then they'll deal with the healing, instead of us volunteering to handle the task. No sense in going for both, however. We don't have infinite space."

"I say hospice," Lemia said. "If the church wanted our support, then they should have supported us against Claron. Cowards. Besides, Lyra is a beacon of nature magic, she doesn't need the church."

Calenda couldn't object overmuch. "It will take more work than that, and you know it. If you want to establish a hospice without the church, it will require time and effort on all our parts, to avoid looking ineffectual."

"Or we make it look like we need the church," Lemia countered. "And I'm not sure how they'd respond to some of our other projects. Like going back into those tunnels, or whatever we're going to do with these squirrels." She left the more objectionable projects unspoken.

"Will you have time, between that and dealing with school?"

"I think I'll be fine. With the sarite I have, I don't need to sleep anymore and can even use some to cast healing magic." Lemia smiled at how convenient things were for her, now. "And more important, the deans sent us a letter, explaining that they understand the difficulties of running a noble house and were willing to be accommodating to our unique circumstances. Oh, and if you can believe it, Dean Meris is claiming he gave me his prized sword, so that I could use it to help stop Lord Claron."

Cali frowned. "Well, that is convenient. Speaking of messages, our other allies sent one as well. They say they cleared out a major goblin nest. Nothing of value but a large supply of weak sarite. We should send a message back about this whole 'House Cali' mess. Do we want to go collect the sarite, or donate it to Sonhome in the name of your new house?"

"You mean House Cali?" Lemia said, then basked in Calenda's glare.

=====

Lady Elruin na Cali, mistress of the nightmare squirrels.

If Ell went with Cali instead of Lemia, there would have been additional squirrel (their official bestiary name is "Eye Collector"- guess what game they're inspired from?... I will have their creature description listed as 'fuzzy harbingers of madness and death'...) babies, and more eye crystals. In any case, now that Elruin has a Clackybones, and the Eye Collectors, the collection of adorable abominations has almost grown to completion. We just need to add 'Alice'.

NOW we are finally at the end of this mess. A string more votes, then a major timeskip and we can get an older Elruin and her Eye-Eaters. Don't expect an update tomorrow, this is a major thing.

 

Suggested Listening

"One century," Kalla muttered. She looked out at the decimated, desecrated, landscape. "You were given over a century to consolidate, to grow your power, to become a god, and you squandered it indulging your cowardice and perversion."

"I am a god, demon!" He shouted at the sky, but did not try to seek out her position. With the complex series of sarite defenses on his sedan chair, he was insulated against all forms of magic save the small amount of communication magic needed to command his deathless army, and enough light to see out. It was more expensive than a small castle, but when coupled with his own personal sarite that eliminated his need to eat, breathe, or sleep, not even the power of a god could reach him.

At the necromancer's behest, armies began to converge upon her. "I have slain the mightiest of dragons and enslaved them to my will! I am legion, and you are but one woman!" From within his personal fortress, he could command his armies forever, until the entire world stood in obedience to him.

Twelve hundred and thirty nine arrows rained from the heavens, as she counted each one. No passion, no fury, just the lifeless actions of those who had died but could not rest, riding upon griffin steeds as dead as they were.

Kalla looked upon the creatures, her heart moved to pity. They were victims of this coward who thought he could command her element better than she. He who imagined himself a god of the undead while hiding behind them and treating them as nothing but tools. "How many have you slain, to fight me? So many lives taken, so many futures extinguished, for the sake of one man's kingdom."

"You of all beasts would lecture me on morality?" He kept working his power, gesturing with his hands as he selected each of his swarm and set them upon the necessary path. The plague-bearers were useless in such a battle, but he had archers and siege weapons and griffin riders to harry her until the dragons could be wrested from their slumber. Even dead, they proved difficult to control, but they were amongst the strongest forces he possessed.

"I will lecture you as much as I desire." She respected his tactical mind and control, but otherwise despised this degenerate. "Do you know how many griffins remain in this world? Before you, there were seven hundred. Now there are less than seventeen. Their species will soon be extinct, and their deaths are on your hands. I, for one, have never been responsible for ending a species."

"For a self-proclaimed goddess of death, you care far too much about life. That is your weakness, and through it you shall die."

"Heh!" For a moment, she felt genuine humor. "You remind me of a younger me. A much younger me." With a single act of power, she carved a hole through his sarite barricades, and split his miniature fortress-prison open to the light. Before he could react, she was standing before him, and had her hand around his throat.

With his windpipe blocked off, he couldn't shout while he struggled, but struggle he did. With a gesture of his fingers, as pulling on puppet strings, he used his Control Revelation to beckon his soldiers. Unquestioning, and swifter than any human, they struck her from behind with their swords and axes. Magic weapons infused with temporary power by the man before him, they had power enough to scratch her gown.

"Which is a problem for you." With her wings, she batted them away. Weapons forged of dragon bone scattered to the four corners of the world, while their less-sturdy wielders exploded into a cloud of dust. "I don't like myself very much." She squeezed harder, cut off the blood flow to his brain.

Soon he would die a dog's death, and then she would have to decide what to do about his army. On one hand, the swarm of the walking dead had its uses for future projects, and she could do so while circumventing the taint of her soul. On the other hand, it was a walking fountain of the highest order of taint, far too unstable to control for any length of time. This was a resource that would need to be used soon, or destroyed.

Distracted she was by her thoughts, she did not recognize the upsurge of necromantic power within the swarms of the dead. A single child, flesh covered in scars, charged at her exposed back.

She noticed the movement, her senses were far too good to be surprised by such an obvious weakness as not paying attention, but she did not recognize the power beyond that movement before one of her smoke wings was torn open by claws able to carve through the spiritual.

For the first time in centuries, she felt pain. Unprepared for the sharp agony and all that came with it, she cried out and dropped the necromancer she had been strangling rather than slaying outright like she should have.

Moments later, another slash of claws removed a second of her flailing wings, then the child zombie was upon her, each slash carving through her enchanted clothes and taking her blood with them on the way through.

Panicked, she used her teleportation magic to take her and her alone into the upper atmosphere, well above the height where griffins could fly. Covered in enough blood to hide her nudity, she gasped and shuddered. These wounds were deep, and resistant to what little healing magic was available to a negation-aspect being such as herself.

She had never been so close to death as she came today, not since she faced her current master and lost. Once again, she was reminded that for all she claimed she wanted death, she feared what lay beyond. She observed the army below, rallying around its commander, the corpse-child. Kalla had damaged it during the fight, but it was the focus for all the power of an army of the dead, the locus of the taint.

It was a clever ploy, what this necromancer had done in creating a sapient battery of undeath and then using it to power his army, rather than chaining an army to himself as so many other fools had done. It had not been enough of a divorce to protect his soul from the taint, which then reduced him to this deranged dead soul residing in a living body, and thus rendered him worthless to the world, but it was enough to spare his flesh from the price paid for the birthing of undeath.

He might even have achieved the immortality he so desired, if not for one small miscalculation. Still reeling from his near-death experience, the necromancer had no chance to react before his own creation ripped his heart from his chest, with the merciless efficiency Kalla knew she should have exercised the moment the madman crossed the line.

"Still haven't overcome your suicidal streak, I see," a voice said from nowhere and everywhere. "That one got closer than any in a long, long time."

"Still haven't done me the favor of being swallowed by the pit, I see." Kalla glanced at the purple cloak billowing in magical wind that kept its user afloat.

"It found log ago that I am not to its liking." In spite of the insults, the two were the closest thing to friends of anyone in this conspiracy. The others shared a mission, and little else. "Give me a moment."

Void magic had a special influence upon the world, for it was the magic that defied reason and sanity. Little in the options of a void mage showed that difference quite like their healing spells. Paradox warped Kalla, twisted through her, and in a moment the events of the past were erased and replaced. Her blood returned to her insides, her organs restored, her wings, adrenaline, even her clothes no longer bore a single clue that she had been wounded. Where causality was concerned, the injuries never occurred, although she would remember them for a long, long time.

"Is it safe for you to use that spell so casually?"

"Here? On you? Yes." The purple clad figure looked down at the army of the dead mulling like a termite nest that had been kicked over. "What do we have here?"

"Another failure," Kalla spat. "He thought himself a god, but in truth all he accomplished was creating a god, then controlling it for a short time. If our task were so simple, we would have been done long ago." She continued to observe the 'queen' of this hive, a single once-human mind unable to make sense of the thousands of eyes which it controlled. "Still, the birth of an artificial god is an interesting phenomena. Now, what brings you here?"

"Your project at Chiron's Citadel has reached a surprising conclusion. While the subject had been using native undead for some time, or relying upon an allied ghost to carry the taint from one victim to the next, she recently constructed a fresh zombie with her own power."

"Another?" Kalla spared a glance at the void mage. "Why didn't you destroy her? Do you have something else in mind?"

"She purified it at the same moment. It was made from love, a true desire to save another from an unjust fate, with the consent of the victim. The soul remained whole, and the taint has been harnessed. The construct even retains its ability to use magic and sarite."

"What?" Kalla's heart jumped in her chest. She long ago learned the word 'impossible' was spoken only by fools who lacked understanding, but this was beyond her own understanding. The critical difference between her and the fools was her ability to admit she was imperfect. "I had not realized such a thing could be done. Undeath without degradation."

"This has happened a number of times, though I'm not sure you were with us last time. The years run together. No, the taint remains, and if nothing shatters their bond beforehand, the zombie's purification will last so long as the necromancer herself survives, then it will return to the usual pattern."

"Fascinating." Kalla kept her focus on studying the young god below. "How are things progressing?"

"They're not. Your project ended, the necromancer and her allies were victorious." She held out the glowing magical sphere that was called the Eye of Enge not long ago. "It contains much for you to study. But we need a backup plan, soon."

Kalla accepted the trinket. "You know, I think I have just the plan. How long do you think it will take to build a portal that can transport fifty thousand walking corpses halfway across the world?"

"Ask no small favors. I'd say I should be ready in two hours."

"I'll be done in half that time." Kalla dropped to the ground. With a thought, she ensnared the undead, crippled them. Now that she understood the nature of the tiny god and the single once-mortal brain which served as its core grip in the world, she had nothing to fear.

It still tried, oh how it tried, but the dead child was no match for her in power, and certainly no match in skill, experience, or strength of will. With the tainted hive enslaved, Kalla approached the dead man who thought himself immortal. It wouldn't take long before he stood again, another mindless drone within the swarm, serving the very thing he once enslaved.

However, that would not serve Kalla's purposes quite so well as he could if he retained intelligence.

Kalla dipped into the magical recording of the memory sphere, and sampled that of the child called Elruin, and her purified zombie. The technique was sloppy, and the process contained many emotional and spiritual requirements which Kalla could not meet under this or, she suspected, any other circumstance. How could she cast a spell that required love and innocence? Still, she cobbled together something resembling an equivalent.

First, she insulated the corpse from the hive, then granted some small amount of strength to the slain necromancer. His own will to live, his fear of death, and his hatred of her in particular, did the rest. The fragmented remnants of his soul dug their way into his corpse, reclaimed his damaged mind, and revived the dead flesh.

Meanwhile, she reprogrammed it, edited its thoughts, and gave it something else to hate. A child of twelve who had accomplished in her scant years more than he had in over a century.

Unable to speak, but no longer having reason to, the new horror began to gesture to the god that it had birthed, and had turned around and birthed it in turn. An ouroboros of death.

Kalla rose into the sky, unnoticed as the hive began to reorganize itself, and stabilize what remained of its sanity. "Now, let us see how she fairs against a god."

=====

Remember when I said these guys clearly had no plot relevance at all? Well, they still don't, I just really wanted Kalla's theme music to make a showing in the story again. Am I doing April Fools correctly?

I might have caused some confusion by using the word 'hospice' in the last chapter- I'm using the (slightly more) period-appropriate version of the word that served as inns for pilgrims and places to tend to the sick or injured who can't afford their own personal physician. Not the modern (created in the 1960s) version of the word that basically means 'deathbed care'. Which was probably called 'hospice' because nobody likes the word 'deathbed' listed on their resume.

Speaking of old-time words, sedan chairs are those things you see with a bunch of slaves carrying a small box with royalty sitting inside in a comfy room. The smaller, one-person, version is known as a litter.

And everyone who's ever played a horror game knows that the child zombies are always the most dangerous. Always. Doesn't matter if it's surrounded by things the size of buildings, the microzombie is by far the greatest threat.

 

Suggested Listening

"Now that you have stripped the sarite of all its unique aspects, it will lose cohesion. Much like salt, you may have to grind it some to fully break it apart." Professor Abrax's own shard fell apart, as did Elruin's, but some students had to take the time to apply their pestle and mortar to the crystal. "You'll find that as the quality of the shard grows, so too does the difficulty of breaking it apart. Part of why we practice using the weakest shards available. Remember, keep a careful feed to the powder, or it will sublimate."

Elruin suspected the true reason had more to do with expense than convenience; weak shards were cheaper by a wide margin than their more powerful counterparts, since the weak shards were only good for low level alchemy. Still, she maintained the slow burn of magical energy needed to sustain the particulate sarite, a process requiring more control and power than one might expect. Three of her classmates, all years older than her, failed the process.

"Now that you have the sarite stabilized, work the energy lattice into the powder while slowly adding it into your tincture," the professor droned on as if she hadn't given these exact instructions a dozen times in the last few weeks. "Remember, it is a simple recipe and weak powder. You're being judged on stability, not power."

Elruin concentrated harder on her potion, because everyone in the room knew that statement was directed to her in particular. Her control had improved, but work this delicate was like trying to touch a spider's web without shaking it. Her grades would be far better if they allowed her to use a stronger brew, an opinion she expressed once or twice, but it seemed the teachers didn't approve of cheating while the whole class watched.

Her vial lit up as the plant matter bonded with the sarite powder, creating something with its own unique properties. In effect, using what little life remained in the tea-like water to create a semblance of life that could contain magic, but not much more. Once again, it was too bright, with more power than the juices within could sustain. Within a day or two, it would separate and the energy would bleed off. The goal was a potion that could last for months.

She reached for another shard, knowing there was little point in fighting the inevitable.

Before she even began, an exhausted looking woman appeared in the door of the lab, along with one of the school's guards. "My apologies, Professor, this is an emergency." In spite of the subservient language, the guard did not take subservient posture. Her guest, however, did. "She was sent to collect Lady Elruin, claims there's a bloodmold outbreak."

Suggested Listening

Three other students lost their concentration, and in doing so ruined their projects as well. In a civilization with easy access to healing magic, the magic-resistant bloodmold was one of the few remaining diseases that most healers could not deal with. Many refused to try, for it was all too common that the fungus jump from patient to doctor, claiming another life in the process.

While the students muttered in fear and shock, Professor Abrax remained calm. "You swear this to be true?"

The woman, which Elruin now recognized as one of the caretakers for the children staying in the shelter, held out one of the few official seals of House Cali. To use a House seal without permission from an official of the House was a crime resulting in enslavement or worse. "I swear only that Lady Erra's told me to deliver the message."

Elruin had begun to move before the woman finished speaking. "My apologies, Professor, but it is an emergency." If it was a bloodmold infection, then it was a threat to thousands within the city. Specifically, anyone lacking the magical fortitude to survive burning the infection out of the body would die. If it wasn't, then there was an emergency Erra and Cali felt worthy of starting a city-wide panic over.

Another of Erra's regular assistants at the Shelter, Rika, ran toward her in the hall. "Lady Lemia said she has something for you, and you should meet her in your dormitory before going to the Shelter."

"I need my sarite, anyway," Elruin said. Most of it wasn't applicable under the circumstances, but she had a couple shards that could boost her speed, more than enough to make them worth the side trip. She gave a glance to her servants. "I'm sure the guard will be here soon, tell them what you know." She didn't wait for their response.

The two women, older than her by years, bowed their heads. "Yes, ma'am."

Elruin ran through the hall, but by now the news had begun to spread so nobody stopped her. She found Lemia in their dorm, holding a black outfit up.

"What is that?" Elruin went straight for her sarite, Lemia could answer while they worked.

"A gift for you," Lemia said. "I was going to save it for your birthday, but under the circumstances it might be better to have it now. I made it from necroleather off those hand monsters. It's got a reserve of necromancy that should amplify your magic and protect you from other magic, especially creation aspect stuff. And I even managed to work some self-mending magic in there."

Elruin turned to look at the sleek leather combat armor, similar in form to that which Cali had worn when the first met. She stripped out of her outer clothes, then put on the new armor with Lemia's help. The absolute black of the armor contrasted against her pale skin, and served to emphasize her status as a necromancer and as a warrior and nobility, with her house crest stamped onto the left shoulder and proper sarite pouches stitched within. "It's beautiful. Thank you so much."

"Hey, I wouldn't even be able to make something like this without your help." Lemia handed the outfit over. "But, umm, I'll need it back in a few days. Not forever, but you're wearing half of my grade."

Elruin laughed. "Okay. Thank you again." Now when she ran, she had her sarite to speed her way through the school, and then the city proper. The armor felt incredible, as its magic blended with hers and restored her focus and strength in addition to amplifying her power. She tapped into her skills to amplify the strength of her sarite, pushing her speed to the point where she might have matched a natural horse at full gallop. Nowhere near competitive with Cali, or any of the other elites of the city, but enough that it would surprise anyone who expected her to be yet another backline necromancer.

She arrived at the shelter in record time, with little of her strength expended on the journey, but the news had spread wide already. Around the quarantine hut, a crowd carrying torches stood. They were agitated, but not one approached the house. They could not approach to burn the building, for the nonviolence aura would not allow it. They would not approach for any other reason, for fear of the bloodmold.

Near the shack stood Lyra, whose incredible power made it difficult for Elruin to look within. Still, she could sense Calenda, two adult women, and a young, dying, boy. Another life force was in there, inhuman, but more potent than most people. She knew Erra would be nearby as well, but couldn't spot her in the crowd.

Lady Marela approached Elruin the moment she slowed near the edge of the crowd. "Lady Elruin." Like most of Calenda's family, she had little love for the necromancer who had embarrassed their family so thoroughly. "This is a quarantine zone."

Elruin regarded Cali's older, less pleasant, sister. Almost two years ago, she had been intimidated by the tall, bulky soldier. Now, she could see the difference in their strength, and Cali had explained the gap in their political station. It was by technicality that Marela didn't have to bow to her when they met. Besides, there were too many people here for the few guards who had arrived to control the crowd for long. At some point, probably soon, someone would think themselves around the peace field, by convincing themselves the people in the shack were already dead.

Suggested Listening

"A quarantine on my estate." Elruin brought up her violin and bow, then drew the first sharp notes. "It's my problem to fix." Power surged within her, drawing upon her emotions then refined by her instrument. Darkness roiled around her, as she changed the notes to support the delicate process of marrying life-destroying necromancy to protective earth magic.

Whether she was afraid, or hoped the bloodmold claimed her as a victim, Lady Marela stepped aside, and watched the girl pass without objection. Elruin walked forward, black energy seeping down her arms and legs like ink spreading on paper while people scrambled to move out of the way. They abandoned all plans to torch the building, for fear of what the lady of the estate might do to them if they tried.

When she got closer, she recognized that Lyra had shielded this area, warped the wind such that the almost-invisible infective particles drifted inward instead of spreading outward. She had heard bloodmold was virulent, but this seemed excessive. "Thank you, Lyra."

Elruin lashed out with a burst of necromantic power, burning away much of the living dust that carried the deadly parasite within. Now that she knew it would die when exposed to her magic, she stepped into the protective wind tunnel. When done, she would need to burn the soil around the quarantine house. It was odd, that there were no animals in the dirt. The bugs, even the worms, had fled or died before she arrived. She suspected it was Lyra's doing.

"Lady Elruin?" Cali asked from behind the door. "Please tell me that's you." Within the building, a gasping series of weak sobs could be heard.

"I'm here. You can open the door."

"Good." Cali moved the barricade she put up. "I've been doing what I can to stave it off, but I'm not equipped to fight this stuff." She held up her hand, covered in blood red slime. "I don't think it can truly infect me, but it's doing damage. Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Elruin stepped into a scene from a horror movie. On the ground, near a corner, lay a blob of red goop which looked more like bright strawberry jam than a fungus. The only hint that it might have once been a person was hair and clothes which the plague hadn't subsumed.

In the beds on the furthest side from the dead woman, three people were in various states of infection. The worst was a young boy, both legs freshly amputated, and a deep, throbbing red color just beneath his skin. Each vein was visible, with the same red goo as the corpse, but it pulsed with a soft glow each time the boy's heart beat. It struck Elruin as not unlike the vampiric sarite which Calenda used, but instead of death feeding on life, this was life feeding on life.

The other two, one of whom was a nurse who helped the sick, had smaller infections creeping up their hands and showing around their lips and eyes. Their pulses of light were brighter, more regular, as the disease had not yet ravaged them as it ravaged the boy.

"Do you have a strategy?" Calenda asked. "We usually used fire mages for this, if we could find one brave enough to chance it. It'll be better to get your mistakes out of the way on me first. I'm more resilient than they are."

"Right." Elruin got to work, flushing Cali's skin with the softest of necromantic touches; she needed a procedure that could work on humans, not zombies. It died fast, on Cali, who provided it no source of nourishment. To her shock and surprise, the corpse-blob began to dim as well. "It... shares life force?" She had never so much as heard of such a thing before.

"Will that help us kill it?" Cali asked.

"Maybe. How did this happen?" Elruin pointed her hand at the blob, then spread her fingers. A wide-spread wave of necromantic energy scoured the fungal pod, and its pulsation ceased. All three patients screamed in agony as the remaining bloodmold attempted to siphon off more life energy to protect itself from the necromantic barrage.

Confident she had the basics down, Elruin moved to the boy. All but insensate, the poor child cried tears of bright red while Elruin worked and Calenda talked. She hated to admit it, but Professor Abrax's insistance upon pinpoint precision and flawless execution were paying off in this delicate operation where a single mistake might kill the patient.

"The boy came in, carried by his mother," Cali said. "I healed the mother, and she seemed fine, but her son got sick." Cali looked back at the pile of bones and rotting tissue. "She hid how bad she was hurting, I think, so that we focused on him. By the time I realized it was bloodmold, it was too late for her and I had to amputate his legs to slow the infection. I don't know how or why it got to visible symptoms on the rest of us so fast."

Elruin adjusted her necromancy to ignore human essence as much as possible, while targeting bloodmold as best she could. "It's feeding on life energy, including that of the healing magic we use in the hospital. Or it was, something's blocking it now. Lyra, I think."

She stopped speaking in order to delve deeper into the diseased life energies of this poor child. She burned away the mold as she could, throughout his body, but there was so little else left in him. "Get ready to use all the healing magic you have on him, in a second. Cut open his stomach and dump the healing potion in if you have to."

"What? Why?" Cali moved into position, ready to obey in spite of objections.

"Because I have to kill him if I want to save him." Elruin sang to her power, and let out the black vortex of energy. Attuned as it was to the bloodmold, it still left the other women screaming, and it was enough to stop the boy's heart. A moment later, she siphoned all that energy back to herself, while holding the boy's soul in a shell which could not be breached by the usual ravages of death. "Now!"

Cali obeyed, and poured healing magic into the dead body. The brain was alive, and the damage was light within the core of his body. The difficulty was in sparking life in the blood, but after a long minute he gasped and began sobbing.

Elruin relaxed her grip, and allowed the soul to rejoin the body it had grown to be an intrinsic part of. "I... think we did it. Please help the other two." Elruin stepped out of the building, then began to look around. Still she wore her shell of pure death magic, a show of power as well as a precaution. She began the act of burning everything. When she was done, not a single fleck of dust or blade of grass lived within fifty feet of the women's hospice building.

"The bloodmold is gone." Now that they were safe, she allowed the necromantic 'ink' to fade back into her body, leaving behind her natural pale complexion, then addressed her prestigious guest. "Lady Juna, how long have you been observing?"

Juna smiled at the girl who just kept surprising her. "A few minutes. I almost went in when you flooded the whole complex with necromancy, but I decided to wait to see how you did. It appears your strategy worked out for the best."

"What would you have done?" Elruin looked back at the building. "This is the first I've ever seen bloodmold, I had to improvise more than I'd like."

Juna considered how to phrase her statement. "As per the best experts' teachings, I would have kept a steady supply of healing magic on them, extended my natural resistance to heat to the patients, and then heated their bodies to the point that it cooked the disease out of them. I've never tried it before, but I'm told it works about half the time on peasant bloodlines. It's the best we have."

Elruin considered what she saw of the disease before she eradicated it. "I'm not sure that would have worked in this case. I think this version of the disease was changed, somehow."

"You're not the first who's come to that conclusion," Juna said. "We need to have a conversation, in private."

=====

Touching. Necrololi. Don't!

And now we start Chapter 3 in earnest, with Elruin about to turn 14. A time skip of a year and a half, where there was little important other than the necrololi's power grows.

Fine control is not one of Elruin's strong suits. Her power is more "Ball of Death" than "Fine Scalpel of Death". Not that there's anything wrong with the latter, it's just not something Elruin has much talent in.

And, yes, there's a need to be this strict about potion quality. The ones that break down completely are safe enough in that they're easy to identify... but if it stabilizes into a wrong form... well... there is a fine line between medicine and poison. Same holds true of most magic items. Some exception made for the ones that are meant to be poison. Destruction is usually much easier than creation.

Speaking of, bloodmold. In this world, the first two letters in MRSA stand for "magic resistant". Scary stuff. Primary strategy with bloodmold infection is "let the victim die, then burn the corpse". Sometimes they skip the first step. Thing is, like with our superbugs, they can't be immune to everything, and Elruin's brand of magic has an effect closer to chlorine than penicillin. Juna's brand is fire. Not 'closer to' fire. Literal fire.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin clasped her hands together and bowed as was expected of her as a vassal. "Please give me a moment to check on the patients, first. I wouldn't want to put anyone at risk."

"Be as thorough as you need. In fact, if you need anything, just tell me. Preventing an epidemic should be your top priority, as it is mine." Juna began to follow behind Elruin as she approached the hospital building. "I'd like to meet your priestess as well. She's an elusive one."

"She is, but I can always rely on her to be there when I need her." Elruin pretended not to be concerned. "Is the bloodmold dead?" She asked through the door. "Lady Juna has requested an audience. It seems there's more to the disease than we know."

"It appears to be, Lady Elruin." It was rare for Cali to use her title, but these were rare circumstances. "I think we're safe, yet I must advise caution. It might be wise for us to remain in quarantine for a time, on the possibility that you were less successful than we hoped."

"I agree." That it was a convenient excuse for Cali to avoid the direct eye of Lady Juna and perhaps her brother played no small part in the decision. "How is the child doing?" He was still alive, Elruin could see that much, but alive did not mean well.

"He's unconscious, and if the gods are feeling merciful, he'll remain so for a long while," Cali said. "When he awakens, it will be to the news that he lost his legs, an arm, and his mother. With time, maybe a month or two, we'll be able to restore his limbs, but nothing short of a god can bring his mother back now. Speaking of, although we should remain in quarantine, I would beg you make room for us elsewhere. The smell in here is terrible. Then we should burn this building."

Elruin didn't want that poor child to wake up with his mother's desecrated corpse still in the room with him, either. "I'll do what I can." After assuring Cali, Elruin dipped into her magic, and the practice she had with sound manipulation, to amplify her voice. "I need four quarantine shacks built next to one another over there." Elruin pointed to a spot a safe distance from the well of necromancy. "Then burn this building. If you're not here to help, then leave before you're drafted."

"I believe I count as already helping." Lady Juna smiled for a moment, before adding her own orders. "Guards, see to it that those who lack a reason to stay are cleared out, or feel free to make good on Lady Elruin's threat. This is a place to aid the sick, not to make a spectacle of their suffering."

With the possible plague averted, people would have cleared out on their own, but the reminder of social propriety and potential punishment sped the process along. Meanwhile, Elruin found Erra near the edge of the crowd, alongside Lemia.

"Is it true, everyone's safe?" The worry that Elruin was lying for the benefit of the crowd was plain on Erra's face.

"Not everyone," Elruin said. "By the time I arrived, it was too for one, and another is in for a difficult recovery. I think our people will recover soon, though. Lady Juna needs to talk to me, now. Lemia, you should come with. Erra, please keep things stable while we're gone, since the priestess must remain in quarantine until we're certain it's safe. We won't go far, in case I'm needed to purge the bloodmold again."

"What will we do about the medical supplies in the hospice room?"

"They'll be useless, after I cleansed the room," Elruin said. "We'll have to make up the difference with more herbs from the garden, later, but once word spreads that there's bloodmold here... we might not see patients for a while."

"Unless there are others in the city who've been infected," Lemia added. "If they hear you've even managed to slow it down, they'll come to us first." She clasped her hands and bowed to Lady Juna. "My apologies, but the established nobility has a bad reputation when it comes to diseases like this one, which extends to the church and the Order."

"A deserved reputation, I'm ashamed to admit." Juna allowed herself to be led along with no further commentary on the state of trust between peasant and nobility.

Elruin took them to the small building they constructed to hide themselves from prying eyes and scrying magic, as well as to help prevent more of those freakish hand-things from crawling up the tunnel Lyra built for them. Their small collection of shielding sarite wasn't much, but it covered a small building well enough for most purposes. "I hope it's safe enough here."

Juna looked around at the building that was more storage shed than proper meeting room. "You never cease to surprise me. Most people I know would have sold those shards the moment they got hold of them, and trusted the city's protections to be enough. I always knew you were going to be something special some day."

Elruin smiled, taking the compliment for what it was. "You said something about others thinking the bloodmold was strange?"

"I did." Lacking chairs, Juna chose to sit on a chest containing some of the unreadable centaur tablets. "We've seen several outbreaks. They began in the northeast, and began to spread almost immediately. Which makes little sense in its own right; bloodmold sprouts in small clusters, often in graveyards where former victims were buried. It moves slow, and kills fast. While this stuff is spreading faster than should be possible, and kills slow enough to let victims get through city checkpoints without anyone noticing there's anything wrong, and we can't find any shared spot the victims went that might have the original mold."

"You suspect it's being spread as a weapon, don't you?" Lemia caught the implications before Elruin. "Is it the Ghosts of Sorvel, again?"

"Yes to the first, no to the second. If the Ghosts had the sort of skill and knowledge needed to control and change bloodmold to this extent, they wouldn't have fallen apart so easily after Claron's death." On mentioning her brother, Juna touched the scar still on her cheek. "We think this is being done by some other force, one which comes from the plains."

"Is this why you've been restricting trade to the northeast?" Lemia hesitated for a moment. "What? I kept in contact with the merchants we met in Sonhome. It's a good way to stay aware of the world around us. They didn't mention any plagues, though there was something about seeing monsters none of them recognized. They thought they were chimera, but I'm beginning to suspect it's related."

"And I thought we had our leaks under control," Juna said. "They're called chamrosh, which until now had only been found in the plains to the north. If they're migrating south, it's because something even more dangerous is driving them south."

"Are you going to ask me to investigate?" Elruin considered the disruption that would cause to the remnant of her school year.

"I was going to have you deal with the outbreaks," Juna said. "While Arila has been spared until today, other cities have lost good people. Engewal lost two of their finest healers, including one of the six in the empire capable of resurrection magic. As well as four medical necromancers who attempted the same trick you did, and one of my half-siblings who attempted the same trick I almost did. This plague, whatever its origins, is by far the strongest of its kind. Did you learn anything of value in fighting it?"

"I'm not sure." Elruin considered what she witnessed, and how best to explain it to Juna. "I'm not a medical mage, but according to the priestess, it grew faster and stronger when exposed to healing magic, which I think is normal for bloodmold."

Juna nodded. "This one seems able to do more than most, but that is one of bloodmold's defining features."

Elruin considered how to explain it without revealing her lifesight. "I did notice it seemed to share its strength with the rest of the plague. When I hurt the infection in one person, it withstood more than it should have, but the disease around it also suffered. Like it was just parts of a single creature. When I changed to hitting all of it at once, that's when I saw real progress."

"Interesting," Juna said. "I'll relay that to Engewal. The healers might be able to use it. What else did you learn?"

"Nothing." Elruin bowed her head. "I apologize, I wasn't thinking about how I might have to describe everything about the plague to you. I was too concerned with killing it to study it first."

"Where did it start in the body, how did it spread?"

"Umm, the hands?" Elruin guessed. "It was in the fingers and hands of the women, and I guess in their eyes."

"Normal bloodmold starts in the lungs or stomach," Lemia said. She hadn't studied much on plagues, a fact which she was fast coming to regret. "It will only start in other parts of the body through open wounds in the skin. Unless it's been festering secretly in the body for quite some time, or it's found another way to spread."

Outside, screaming started.

"Merat ne!" Juna rolled to her feet and jumped through the door, choosing to smash it rather than take the extra half-second to pull it open.

Elruin rushed out next, followed after by a much less enthusiastic Lemia. Outside, Cali was struggling to fight with her own nurses whose eyes were now the pure red color of living bloodmold. Behind them, the blob that had once been a woman, and another which was a dismembered little boy, struggled to crawl after them onto the fresh battlefield.

"But I killed it!" Elruin shouted. Then she looked, and realized the mold was, in fact, still dead. "Necromancy!" Somehow, using methods Elruin could only guess at, someone had found a way to bring the fungal goo back as a zombie without needing to be within detectable magical range. The technique was either more subtle or more powerful than anything she'd ever heard of outside a theology lesson to accomplish such a feat. "It's undead!"

"Then we both know how to deal with it." Juna didn't wait for an acknowledgment as swords of pure flame manifested in her hands. Her first strike took off the heads of both nurses, then set their corpses ablaze like they had been coated in lamp oil. Juna then plunged her weapons into the both and his mother, a second death more merciful than the first.

Elruin began to sing, to strip and purge the taint born of this strange, unliving, weapon. The taint fought her, resisted every step of its cleansing like a feral beast backed into a corner, like the occasional swine at the farm which realized it was being led to the slaughter. It attempted to flee, to hide, until it exhausted the tattered remnants of strength and burned itself out, the last remaining wisps chained and shattered by Elruin's control.

Only once before had she seen such a obstinate will to live from the force of undeath.

Juna stood there, holding her breath amidst the smoke and flame of four burning bodies. Her eyes were on Calenda, rather than the carnage around them.

Elruin said the only thing she could think of to draw attention away from elder sister. "It was intelligent."

Juna looked up at her. "What?"

"The mold, or the taint which controlled it, was sapient. A true genius loci, and one too old to have begun here. We're facing an abomination necromancer."

=====

... Maybe the "opening sequence" chapters are a mistake. Reveals like this one are a little less impactful when the readers already know the score. Eh, I've never been a fan of those sorts of cheap tactics anyway.

Back near the beginning of this story, one of my readers said something about how this setting would be destroyed in a crossover with Resident Evil (specifically, the setting's Las Plagas). I wonder if anyone still thinks that...

 

Suggested Listening

An aura of flame still dancing around her, Juna looked around at her guards with a barely hidden disgust. She had fought, Elruin had fought, and this priestess had fought, while they stood and watched. When the adrenaline wore off, she would ensure each and every one of them considered death by undead fungus more desirable than the ire of their commander. "Is it dead for real this time?"

"I believe so." Elruin, too, remained in her ebon war mode. "It was an interesting trick, but one that I think can only work once. At least, to that extent."

"How did an undead taint sneak into the city?" Despite reassurances, she had no intention of lowering her guard a second time.

Elruin thanked whatever power it was that gave her power, for the calming effect of her own shielding was all that kept her from panicking at the risk of revealing the secret that was what she did with Cali. "It wasn't undead before it died. It's... it's as if the fungus was infused with magic. Like a living potion, if that makes sense. When it died, it set off a series of preconstructed enchantments. There was no taint until that moment."

"But how would one go about building an abomination spell into bloodmold?"

"I don't think it was." Lemia remained hiding behind Elruin. Unlike the others, she didn't trust her magical abilities to defend her from this thing. "I think it was inscribed into the bones of the victims. Uh, I'm a geometric revelation. We're sensitive to shape and positioning, and something about that child's body looks wrong. I mean, aside the obvious stuff."

Meanwhile, Cali was doing her best to inch away as well. If Garit had been here as well, she wouldn't have bothered, but Juna was far more impulsive and prone to distraction than her sibling.

"I'll check." Elruin brought up her hand and struck the bones with her power. They crackled with power, then began to move, for a half second before Elruin stripped the necromantic energies from the region. "I don't know how, but someone etched runic magic into their bones. I think it was a trap for me."

"Not you," Lemia said. "Remember, Lady Juna said these were happening all over the place. Considering necromancers are the best equipped to defeat other necromancers, I think this was meant as an opening strike. It didn't matter if the victims were alive when the necromancer purged the bloodmold, so long as their magic hit the bodies it would activate."

"I saw the scars on the boy's legs." Now that Calenda had managed to get to a safe distance, she was willing to add her own experience. "The maker of the enchantment would have had to have opened up his legs for hours, first."

"If I may, Lady Juna," Lemia said. "The royal scholars need to know of this. I think these... living timebombs... can be detected once they know how to look."

Suggested Listening

"I can find them, even subtle necromancy should cause a react... entek na! The cemeteries! They use necromancy!" Elruin dipped into her magic again, activating her sarite. "Warn the other cities! Lemia, scholars! Lady Juna, sorry, emergency!" With sarite empowerment, she got a solid head start before the others realized she was moving, with Calenda a half-heartbeat behind.

"Soldiers! Remain on guard. Nobody enters or leaves without my permission." She tossed a bronze disc at the ground near Lemia's feet. "Get whatever scholars you think you need to get. Anyone who has a problem can discuss it with me."

Calenda caught up with Elruin the moment they were out of eyesight from Juna; as much as the young necromancer had improved, she still wasn't a match for a battlemage like Calenda was when alive, let alone the enhanced abilities that came from her now familiar unliving status. "Please, tell me that was theater for my sake. They couldn't create undead through mortuary defenses, could they?"

"I don't know!" Elruin kept moving in the direction of the cemetery. "If one of those runes get there, they might!"

"Merat na!" Cali picked up pace. "If I get too close, the mortuary spells will notice me."

Elruin considered her options. "I can handle any fighting." She wasn't certain that she could, but she felt confident she could hold the line until help arrived. "Try to make contact with Scratch. If anyone's seen this before, it's him."

"Go to the poor section, first. Weakest defenses, fewest guards, most bodies." Cali turned around after giving her advice.

Elruin slowed right before reaching the mortuary, enough to make certain the guards saw the House crest emblazoned on her new armor. It didn't stop them from pointing their weapons at her, perhaps because she was wrapped in necromantic energy that made her look like an enemy rather than an ally.

"Official city business. Where do you put the bodies?" Healing magic was powerful, but it had limits, so one could expect several natural deaths per day in addition to the occasional murders, suicides, and accidents which were inevitable in a city the size of Arila.

The woman guard stepped forward, her weapon still at the ready. "My apologies, Lady, but we received no word of official business here, and you're not part of our command change."

"There was an attack by an abomination mage," Elruin said. She allowed her death-shell to melt away, revealing her face. "We stopped the attack, but it might come here next."

The guard hesitated, no doubt considering her position if something went wrong one way or the other. She settled on the argument that even were Elruin lying, there was nothing they could have done to stop the little necromancer who had better equipment and more raw power than they had. "This way, ma'am."

Due to the lack of space and perpetual risk of taint or other magical corruptions, cemeteries in Engewal were comprised of bricks made from the cremated remnants of the dead. A practice so common and widespread that nobody so much as considered the concept of burying whole bodies. The crematorium building itself was not far from the poor section of the cemetery, itself near the poor side of town.

How the brick was treated after depended upon the wealth and traditions of the survivors, but for the poor they were oft used in the construction of small, ornate memorial rooms as lined the open space of the cemetery while the wealthy took the bricks home with them, to be placed in small memorial shrines, or whatever decision was made. Sometimes, entire rooms were built of a family's long-forgotten dead.

Elruin felt the twisting distortion of death magic colliding with undeath in this sanctified place meant to deny any spell that might threaten the fractured remnants of souls that stayed with their bodies for some brief time. "We're too late." She returned to running toward the source of the distortion, only to slow when the two forces cracked against one another like a man breaking his hand by punching another's jaw hard enough to break it as well.

Several of the bodies began to move in a slow, halting process that was the weakest of any undead spawn she had ever seen. Slow enough that the morticians working with the bodies managed to undo the taint with their own talents without need for Elruin. These were professionals, educated in the tasks they were assigned to a degree which exceeded Elruin's.

Given time, perhaps a matter of days, the taint might have grown to be a threat to the cemetery, and then the city, but she had no doubt that everyone of merit within the city felt what happened here, and those tasked with defending the city were en route, expecting a much greater threat than what was born here.

So Elruin began to sing, helping to purge the taint, while doing what she could to mend the damaged enchantments of the cemetery. Whomever was tasked with fixing this mess would be at work for a long time dealing with magic far more complex than that which she was accustomed to.

As soon as the immediate calamity was dealt with, one of the church exorcists approached her. A man, but under the circumstances social decorum mattered less than making certain a disaster had been averted. He looked at her emblem, then gave the polite nod of one noble greeting another. "Lady necromancer. I am Exorcist Kale ne Mer."

"I am Elruin na Cali." She had no specific title to go by, which put her at the social disadvantage on all notable levels.

"Lady Elruin, I find it unlikely your arrival here was coincidental." The tone was calm, the choice of words stilted by a need to choose neutral words, asking nothing of the other while seeking to trade information.

Elruin chose to make things easier by speaking to the woman soldier who had followed behind her. As an assigned defender of the cemetery, she was every bit as entitled to the warning, and without the social barricades. If a man just so happened to overhear the conversation, so be it.

"I'm sorry I didn't arrive in time to prevent this. I also didn't expect a result like this one. The magic we encountered was... complex, and new. Lady Juna is warning other cities, and we're already seeking to pull together the city's scholars to study the technique used. All we know for certain is that it used runic magic carved into the bones of still-living people, which will then convert any standard necromancy into taint."

"I'm no scholar." The guard looked at the Exorcist, as if seeking an opinion before speaking further. "Please, tell me what I can do."

"First, separate all bodies, and make certain none are exposed to any necromancy. It might be wise to chain them down or lock them in cages." The ability to break through steel bars was beyond most undead. Even Calenda would have great difficulty doing so. "Second, be especially wary of those with diseases, the ones we faced were infected with bloodmold, perhaps to trick a necromancer into cleansing the bodies and trigger the runes." She decided not to mention it worked.

"What will you do?" The guard asked.

"I need to check the body which carried runes first, then other incoming bodies. I'm certain Lady Juna will have more specific instructions for everyone later, once we know how the magic works. It's not my place to assume what she'll command."

"As you wish, Lady Elruin. I'll lead you to the morgue."

Suggested Listening

"The good news is that the attacks failed, and we know why," Lady Juna stated for the assembled group of nobility and officers. "The bad news is best explained by my brother."

"To start with, the techniques used are sophisticated, third-generation enchantments." Garit paused to let the audience consider what this meant, which left Elruin to sit and guess. "Fortunately, they were designed using different magical traditions than our own. It means the enemy's magic is unfamiliar to us, but also that our magic is unfamiliar to the enemy."

"In short," Lady Juna added. "We have the same disadvantage, and now it's a matter of us learning their techniques faster than they can can learn ours. With the failure of their sneak attacks, we're in the stronger position."

"Our scholars are already hard at work redesigning our protective wards to detect and counter the living-weapon techniques shown." As much as Garit liked his sister's enthusiasm, he was less fond that he was always the one to deliver the bad news. "Until then, however, all cities will have to close their gates until we can adapt our defenses. The entire nation is to be treated as if it's under siege."

"Against the undead?" High Priest Rodar stood, as the only person in the city of equal rank to the Duchess, he had the right to question them. "If we allow the taint to fester, it will reach the point where there's nothing left for us to protect!"

"Correct, and we won't," Garit said. "We know the enemy infects victims with bloodmold because it absorbs creation energies, which the necromantic runes are vulnerable to, and need only the time to design a form of creation spell that can bypass the mold. We will not spend some indeterminate time hidden while the enemy grows. In a matter of days, we will be ready for our counterattack, and until then we will help prepare your Houses as we can for the war against an abomination threat."

Plans were discussed, revolving around a twin strategy of adjusting the sarite shields and preparing magic to counterattack the undead. Elruin bit her tongue, for she knew not how to explain what they were facing without admitting to knowledge of undead which could hide themselves from detection. More, it meant a real threat to Cali and Scratch as the magic was changed.

Once she had some privacy, she asked Lemia the question which had plagued her this entire time. "Umm, when Garit said Third-Generation enchantments, what did he mean?"

Lemia looked down at the ground. "It means, this magic has been used in war, already."

"What? How can you tell something like that?"

"The basic theory is this: whenever you design an enchantment, or any spell, you're building it in a safe box, like at the College. Then you use it, and discover it doesn't perform quite how you expected, so you redesign it with failsafes and tricks to protect it from failure, that's a second-generation design, and most mages stop there. Third generation designs are when an enemy counters your design, so you redesign it again to stop the enemy's magic from stopping your magic. Combining taint runes with bloodmold, for example."

"So whatever is behind this has won a war using it, before."

"Or were driven out after failing," Lemia suggested. She didn't have the heart to make herself believe it, however.

The pair spent the rest of their walk home in silence.

=====

Punching people in the face is not a good idea. Even if you know how to hit right, you can do some serious damage to the hand bones. Aim for the stomach instead: it's full of important and pain-sensitive organs, but lacking the bone defenses. Unless you're fighting zombies, in which case you're probably better off not being in melee range.

And, incidentally, yes, I've gone to at least third-generation with almost every spell and enchantment in the game- 'what does this do', 'how would you counter it', 'how would you counter the counter'- I can't begin to guess how many cycles I go to.

Sometimes. Obviously, a spell that's only good for repairing damaged clothes won't see more than just a first generation consideration. It isn't meant to be used in combat, and only mends clothing.

 

Suggested Listening

Priestess Erena locked eyes with the necromancer, the first time they'd seen one another since she came into the church a dirty homeless peasant-girl following Priestess Calenda like a lost puppy. Erena knew the girl was dangerous then, but had no idea how dangerous until much later. How time changes the world. So it was with more satisfaction than might be considered holy that she answered the girl's request. "I'm afraid the church can't help you."

Elruin gazed right back, not knowing the thoughts in the priestess' head. "Why?"

Lemia took the news less well, and stood with her hands clenched. "If this is about us snubbing your useless church, then that just proves we were right."

Priestess Erena offered a serene smile, knowing full well it would do nothing but infuriate the apostates further. "Not at all." She felt full confidence that a Truthsayer would know her words to be fact. "We cannot tell you anything to help, for there is nothing to tell. Bloodmold is and has always been a deadly plague which resists all known techniques of healing magic. It is common knowledge that only by killing the mold first can you hope to heal the patient. And as I understand it, the abomination runes make it impossible to cleanse the mold without killing the host."

"So you're telling us that the only method is killing them."

"I know little of the nature of this accursed magic, but if there is a method, it must be in defeating the runes, for there is none with bloodmold you don't already know." Priestess Erena turned her eyes down. "I will pray that Enge might bless us with a better answer in this time of need."

"Yeah, you do that, I'll go do something useful." Lemia turned and walked away.

Erena considered making an impolite quip asking what that might be, but that would have been petty. Instead, she allowed the young woman to storm off, before addressing the necromancer. "It is good that you're not as impetuous as your advisor."

"You have my apologies." Elruin clasped her hands and bowed. She was not known for her spiritual devotion, but there was no reason to be rude. "Please, is there nothing you've heard of which might help? Even rumors might lead us in the right direction."

"I am reminded of a tale in Origins which tells of King Emarik, who sought immortality by having his body transmogrified to gold. Which, I suppose, would be immune to both necromancy and bloodmold." Erena wondered for a moment if she was, perhaps, too soft-hearted, then continued. "It was not long before the king was melted down and divided amongst his once-loving children. It is a warning, that those who would twist nature to their own will shall suffer unspeakable fates for their hubris. Bloodmold, horrid as it is, was born of nature. This abomination magic is the enemy of nature, so it is there which will be vulnerable."

"As you wish." Elruin bowed again. "I believe we are done here."

"Go with Enge," Priestess Erena said, then prayed in silence long after the necromancer left. Enge had not moved to action when the blasphemer claimed to be Chosen, nor did he seem inclined to act now with this foreign invader using the foulest of magics conceivable to attack his children. Were the world in better condition, she would make the pilgrimage herself.

Elruin found Lemia pacing outside the church. "I think she was telling the truth."

"I know, I know, I'm just frustrated. I guess it was too much to think there might be a solution more merciful than 'burn everything that so much as breathed in the presence of these poor people'. I hope you didn't have to humiliate yourself too much on my behalf."

"Priestess Erena told me the story of King Emarik." Elruin ignored Lemia's huff of disdain. "It did get me thinking, however. Maybe there is a way to transform people, kill the mold, then turn them back? The runes are easy to deactivate, if not for the mold shielding them."

"Only thing I know that'll transform a body without killing it is some forms of sarite, but that will kill weak people faster than the mold. And I guess some dragons have venom that can turn a body into stone, but I don't know if there's a way to reverse the transformation. I also don't know how either trick would react with bloodmold or taint runes. They might be cured, or they might explode like they do when exposed to fire magic."

"Then we must wait for the experts to learn what they can of the runebone magic."

"I have some thoughts about that, myself," Lemia said. "Didn't it seem to you that this sort of runebone magic is exactly the sort we found in that book in Sonhome? More advanced, but based on the exact same principles?"

"It did." Elruin looked down at her armor, crafted of that very technique. Which tied in all too well with her pets' ability to extract life essence. All of them were connected, in some way she couldn't begin to understand.

Suggested Listening

Lord Garit finished the incantation pulse, which reverberated across all of those in witness, then took a breath while waiting for those amongst them to recover from the alien sensation of the magical wave. "As you can see, it's a complicated alteration to your magic, one with notable deficiencies in speed and power, but it will allow you to bypass the body and strike the bone directly with any other applicable spell, including many variations of detection spells."

Elruin frowned, considering the nature of the spell. It worked quite well, but it came with one notable drawback. "Am I wrong, or does this do nothing to save those who have bone runes?" She spoke to Lemia, but Lord Garit was the true target of the question.

"Lady Elruin is astute in noting that, indeed, this will do nothing to protect those with bone runes. If the victims don't carry bloodmold, or some other as yet unrevealed surprise, then healing magic will still break the necromantic runes, but if they do, then the mold will likely kill the victim. We cannot save everyone, so we must devote our efforts to protecting ourselves and our allies first. Such is the nature of war."

In short, Lord Garit as well as all of the priests, nobles, and scholars in this meeting had consigned those people to their deaths. Elruin took a slow breath, then nodded. "I understand, we have a responsibility to our charges." It didn't sit well with her, however. "As such, I will be going to seek out the creator of these abomination runes. I will make it tell me how to stop the runes, then kill it."

Calling a person an 'it' was a dire insult, but appropriate when referring to an abomination mage; they were not seen as human. Perhaps this made Elruin a hypocrite, considering her own use of the undead, but she felt there was a difference between her dollies and carving up living people to use as biological weapons, although she knew she was alone in that opinion.

"Lady Elruin, do you believe that is wise?" Juna took over for her brother, as this was no longer a conversation that could be had without direct address.

"I know I'm immune to the bloodmold, as was Priestess Esra." Perhaps volunteering Cali was wrong, but it was a good excuse to get her as far from the twins as possible for the foreseeable future. "I should be able to find other allies with similar immunities. Perhaps amongst the dwarves, their natural fire magic should protect them. I've controlled and destroyed the undead numerous times before, I can do it again."

Lady Juna's eyes narrowed. "If you can find the source of the runes, or recognize it when you do. It would be terribly shortsighted of us to let you leave under such circumstances, with little hope of success."

"I have developed a spell that can let me see some fragments of a dead body's memories." She looked at the scholars present; such techniques were unusual, but she wasn't alone.

For Lady Juna, there was but one response to such a claim: "Show me."

Suggested Listening

Elruin stood before what was left of the runic bones, then began to play to the bones of the dead as the bones played back, singing the song of the last important memories of their lives.

He walked alone during a dark night, hungry and uncertain of where his next meal might come from. In his desperation, he looked at the houses. Surely there was one which wasn't so well guarded. He smelled then the soaking warmth of fresh bread on the air.

She held her son close, as the morks yipped and chattered in the darkness. They were fools, these men entrusted with their lives. They left too late, insistent that there was still time even after all the delays of making certain her carriage was cared for. "It's not your fault," a voice whispered to her.

He stared down at the moonlight reflecting from the water, allowing his last few tears to drip out into the darkness. She rejected him, preferring instead that useless fop of a merchant's son. He put one foot on the ledge, then heard a woman's sobbing in the distance.

The scent led him down an alleyway that, were he paying attention, he never would have went. No sane man dared go to the darkest corners, for that was where the men who were real criminals would go to hide from the law. He was hungry, so hungry.

The morks scattered before the kind voice. A strong voice that reminded of her father, back when she was a little girl and he was strong and healthy.

"Mommy?" Her son resisted, but not for long. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere safe."

She disappeared into the forest, the caravan guards unaware that she had left until they heard her screams.

He followed the crying girl's voice. Surely, this was the voice of a goddess, for no mortal being could make notes so beautiful. He was half correct.

The thing crawled out of the darkness three rotten limbs at a time. Sometimes arms first, sometimes legs, or a face, or a different face. Rotting flesh, exposed bone, and the stench of diseased flesh. Across its body oozed sores that pulsed with life, somehow, within the tainted flesh of undeath. They stood, watched, but did not struggle when it reached for them.

Their eyes saw this horror, but their minds saw a kindly old woman willing to aid a starving man, a strong and reliable father worthy of the trust only a child could have, a lonely maiden who should never have to know heartbreak.

They screamed, their flesh burning in agony as the thing carved open their limbs and extracted their bones. Then, it took bones from its own abundant collection of limbs and replaced them. Living gel consisting of unknown life was stuffed inside them, to hold the bones in place and seal the wounded flesh. It would not last forever, but it would last long enough to serve its purpose.

Their minds only a full stomach, a loving embrace, a gently caress.

The things carried them to new destinations to unknowingly deliver their secret payloads, cradling them as a parent cradles a child, as a spider cradles its cocooned prey. Meanwhile, its other limbs went to work carving a new set of runes into the fresh bones.

Elruin watched both in disgust, as the mind and body told two opposing stories, until she lost control of her music and fell back into Lemia's arms. "It... they..."

"Shh, you're safe, you're here with us," Lemia whispered. "Take your time, when you're ready to tell us."

"It's... they were attacked by a composite corpse-thing with dozens of limbs and multiple heads and a body made of at least ten different people." Elruin took her time, as memories faded away like dreams within dreams. "It took out their bones, and replaced them with its own."

"At least I won't have to caution the Guard to not accidentally kill someone innocent," Juna said. "Consider it standing orders to destroy crawling corpse horrors on sight. How does a thing like that hide?"

"They have magic, probably miasma in origin. They used illusions of smells and sounds and attractive faces that were exactly what the victim wanted to see in order to lure them."

"Undead with magic?" One of the exorcists scoffed. Later he might have to be chastised for speaking to a woman the way he did.

"Not necessarily." As far as Lemia was concerned, if he got to speak to a woman that way, she got to speak to him the same way. That it helped deflect suspicion from the possibility of, say, an undead priestess healing people on the outskirts of town was also important. "It could be more runic magic, set to broadcast a lure spell following preset conditions. All the monster would need to do is follow a series of rote instructions built into it by its maker. The level of skill would be significant, but hardly impossible."

"Some of their memories were erased, but only from their minds, not their bodies." Elruin stepped away from Lemia, to stand on her own strength again. "It only controls them until the thing is done."

"Then we're dealing with a dangerous necromancer with perhaps the most subtle of magical spellsets." Lady Juna considered her options. "I'll work out more specific details later, but for now adjust our roster to ensure there are at least two inquisitors at the gate at all times, and make certain all our compulsion wards are checked twice daily."

As defenses went, they were good ones, but they were a defensive strategy alone. "Lady Elruin, we can't afford to part with any Inquisitors, but if you need some soldiers or specific equipment, I'm willing to listen."

=====

Priestess Erena is both right and wrong... bloodmold isn't a part of nature, but it was born by the use of healing magic to defy natural illness and disease, so it serves the same lesson. Yay unnatural selection!

One of the paths in this story results in Elruin helping Erena make a trek up the mountain to Enge's caldera where... eh, I won't spoil it.

Inventing myths is remarkably fun!

Oh, and I misspelled "nobles" as "nobiles"... I find this amusing, so I share it with you all.

A little levity is nice after getting your first taste of a freakin' Plaguebearer, right? They might very well be the thing I most look forward to seeing in Video Game format. That or perhaps spells like Voice of the Dead or Artificial Synchronization cutscenes. Or Clackybones nomming faces. Or Squishybones being carried by Elruin. Or the nightmare squirrels.

Actually, there are a lot of things I want to see in video game format.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin flushed another burst of magical power through her armor, this time taking it to the same extreme that she had used while driving off the bloodmold. With nowhere to go, the energies wrapped back upon themselves in a storm of death energies. She watched a few of her professors step back, their eyes wide in the face of her power.

"As you can see, the enchantments and treatments are holding strong," Lemia said. "If anything, their stability improves as they're exposed to further negation energies. In addition, they both insulate and amplify Elruin's natural power, improving her defensive options while not hindering her in any way, save the brief period of time where she has to empower the leather. In short, a perfect tool for her style of necromancy, and one which has proven itself in field testing."

"It is certainly an... unconventional... methodology." Professor Abrax watched the process without so much as flinching. "Under normal circumstances, I would be remind you that weapons of war are for the Acolytes, at which point some of my colleagues might argue the point that every aspect of this design is defensive or utility in nature, thus meeting the letter of the requirements if not the spirit." She looked at said colleagues, daring them to disagree. "Personally, I find such claims to belittle the College's role as an institution of knowledge, and lends credence to those who feel we are little more than weapons manufacturers."

She closed her eyes and sighed. "However, it has been made clear to me that these are unusual times, and I find no glaring faults in your technique, only your subject of design. You have met and surpassed your prerequisites. As such, I will not force the matter to vote, and officially recognize you as an Artisan. You will find the paperwork finished by the time you return."

Lemia bowed, hands clasped. "You have my grati-"

"However," Professor Abrax continued. "If you want to be recognized as a Master at any point while I still draw breath, I strongly advise your final project be an instrument of learning and peace, not military function."

Now Lemia cringed back. "Yes, Professor."

"And while you're here, Lady Elruin, I believe that other than your alchemy course, you have satisfied your professors' requirements. We will advance you in all other disciplines, and register alchemy as incomplete. We've deal with many situations where students had to take time away from their education, and have learned the longer they take to return, the worse they perform in the future. I advise you to keep that in consideration."

Elruin nodded and clasped her hands as well. "Yes, Professor Abrax. Thank you."

As soon as they left, Lemia looked up and breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought we would never get out of there."

Elruin looked down. "I'm sorry you got in trouble for making me a gift, instead of doing something else."

Lemia laughed, and gave Elruin a pat on the back of her hand. She would have gave Elruin a hug, but the armor was still charged with a great deal of necromantic power. It seemed stable, but Lemia wasn't confident enough with her work to bet her life on that belief.

"No, I should be thanking you for the excuse. Truth told, I barely squeezed by the practical requirements of the discipline, and it was only by applying the necrotempered techniques that I could meet the 'novel application of the art' requirement. Armor for necromancer was my best hope to pass. Without you, I would have had to wait another three months at the earliest to get my license."

Elruin smiled at her. "Oh, then you're welcome."

"Yes I am." Lemia left out the part where she had only planned to go for the status of acolyte, for the purposes of making her career as a basic potion-crafter.

They made small talk while walking back to the Shelter, for there was little for them to speak of. Erra understood that they might not return for some time, if ever, and that for the time being she was in charge of Elruin's odd little estate. Lady Juna and Lord Garit knew their path of travel, and everyone was ready to act as they needed. All they needed was their last pieces of equipment, and Elruin's pets.

Suggested Listening

"Nona, Deci, Mort, come!" She shouted into the smaller tree that her pets had chosen as their home. Soon, the three jet-black squirrels ran down the tree to their accidental maker.

For a moment they sniffed at her, uncertain of her new armor, but they found its necromantic aura to their liking and climbed into their positions on her arms and shoulders, in order to lap at the excess power within the armor.

The two girls walked to the front gates with only the equipment they could carry on them. Thanks to their current sarite, neither of them had need of a horse, and they had little use for ostentatious supplies.

"Reminds me of the last time we left the city," Lemia said. "Except without the farewell party."

Lady Juna awaited them at the gate. "Leaving light, I see." She looked over the pair, including a moment to consider the fuzzy red-eyed magical monsters which Elruin had collected. They seemed well enough behaved. "Where's your priestess?"

"She intends to meet us en route," Elruin said. "She went to get our dwarven ally, who should be immune to bloodmold. We should meet somewhere near Engewal. Perhaps we'll find some evidence of the monsters or necromancer along our path. I promise we'll be careful, but I suspect we won't find anything of value until we reach Seyid. Until then, it's best if we travel light and move fast."

"You remind me of Calenda more by the day." Juna held out a small pouch. "You'll find a couple mind shielding sarite, along with an official Arila house seal. I don't advise you use it casually, but it may help you in dealing with local politics. But be careful, it will make many of them even more distrustful. Seyid is more plainsmen than Engevali, especially toward the northeast."

"You have my gratitude." Elruin nodded before leaving.

Soon after leaving, Elruin extended her arms toward a tree. "Up!" Her trio of necromantic rodents scampered into the branches, serving as an extra layer of protection from the threats of the forest.

Further out, Elruin began her song, and called to her the dead she had hidden in the ruins which once stood in this land. During their time of preparation, they made certain their entourage would be waiting for them.

Void tendril-beasts, or their skeletal remains, pulled themselves through the soil and into the open air for the first time in over a year. It was for this reason that Elruin had to travel light, for no living being in Arila save those out here now would tolerate the methods she would use to hunt this evil necromancer and the horrors he built. They, too, climbed into the trees, where their natural agility and unnatural stamina would allow them to assault any threat.

She would have to wait to see her beloved and long-neglected Mister Clackybones II, who was with Cali, Scratch, and Ketak, taking their own route to meet up with them.

Lemia watched the display, then started to chuckle.

Elruin tilted her head. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing, I'm just remembering the first time, when we found those bandits." Lemia stopped laughing, and returned to looking ahead on the trail. "I was so afraid, I thought we were going to die. Now, I almost want to find another group just to see the look on their faces."

Elruin looked ahead as well, thinking back on the monsters that no longer scared her, but then her mind returned to the ones which still did. "I think if there are bandits out here now, they will need us to protect them."

Lemia's smile vanished, and the forest seemed darker than it had the moments earlier.


=====

It's actually quite possible for Lemia to fail (delay) her Artisan recognition at this point (or even to have walked away with just the Acolyte recognition), but the voters have been quite diligent in the 'education' votes. It cost them in other areas- the failure to bother researching their "void" shards will be a plot point later on, the Eye Collectors aren't nearly as strong as they could have been, and nothing of note was dug up from the undercity- but they did focus on alchemy enough to unlock Elruin's Ultimate Armor early (it'll receive upgrades over time) and the scholar path grants the greatest undead control numbers. If I did (do) my job right, all play options should be more or less valid.

Speaking of, the scholar rankings are... complicated and as much political as they are practical. You start at Student, then Apprentice, then Acolyte, then Artisan, then Master, in recognized ranks. In order to advance to apprentice, you just have to have someone licensed say you're ready to move on (and, really, the difference between the two is just to make older students feel superior to younger ones), but Acolytes and beyond are evaluated and given license (and guild membership) to sell goods by a select group of Master ranked members... not unlike a lawyer's Bar Exam. Under normal circumstances, it's a matter of completing a set of courses and creating a magical item of a certain scope of power and stability. Unusual circumstances may require a vote made by five masters of that field.

In order to be recognized as a master, you need either a unanimous vote of five other masters, or a vote of seven with only one dissenter. Requiring the sample be of certain function rather than another is the school being pretentious, but the professor *does* have the sort of influence to make good on her threat by speaking to Lemia's evaluators in the future. That said, having a license is not in and of itself a measure of skill, same as in our world.

I built the system from articles I found about medical licensing done during the late medieval period. I'm pretty sure this resulted in a Frankenstein monster cobbled together from multiple different centuries and nations on opposite sides of Europe from one another.

Seyid is pronounced "see-id".

 

Suggested Listening

Two days of travel later, the teams found each other near the southeastern edge of the Engeval mountains. These were tough lands of foothills and deep gulches carved by heavy storms. Scratch made direct contact first, by virtue of being able to ignore all terrain.

"Look at you," the ghost said while floating above like some sort of arbiter spirit. "That is classy armor, for a classy necromancer. Lady Elruin na Cali, your dear, deceased, big sister would be proud of you."

"I can hear you," Cali came around the bend on Mister Clackybones. "And I can strangle your nonexistent neck."

"True, but can you fly?"

"Don't test m-woah!" While Cali threatened Scratch, Mister Clackybones began to trot toward Elruin.

Elruin ran up and gave the bleached skull of the mare a hug. "Mister Clackybones. I know, I missed you, too. I'm sorry I couldn't see you for so long. I'll try to do better from now on, I promise."

Lemia and Calenda shared a look, before Cali reached out and rubbed Elruin's head. "Thanks for letting me borrow your horse, she was very well behaved. Oh, and Ketak wants you to send a couple of your dollies back to help her. There's a river not far back that she needs help crossing. Oh, right, and she's got some sarite shards to give you."

"Hey, to be clear, those are my shards," Scratch said. "I earned those helping clear out goblins, and I am the one gifting them to Lady Elruin. Especially that time sarite, I think House Cali owes me an official title for it."

Cali either sighed or growled at the ghostly provocateur, and even she wasn't certain which.

Suggested Listening

Elruin heard the screaming song moments before pain radiated from her back. She slammed face-first into Mister Clackybone's neck, which would have caused further injury if not for her superhuman resilience. In her back was an arrow, white light pouring off of it for a few moments before it was blown out like a candle by her own power. The spell dissolved, but after the projectile severed her spine

"Cover Ell!" Cali reacted first, and rushed to where the source of the attack had come from. Lemia was as capable of healing magic as she was, but Calenda knew she was their best option to stop the attacker from killing them all ahead of time.

Lemia and Ketak rushed to Elruin's side, preparing their own sets of spells to stop arrow attacks. Earth and air magic twisted around them, concealing the three of them and, with any luck, stop future projectiles. With the opponent undetectable to their eyes and magic, there was little else they could hope to accomplish.

Then the resonance shifted, distorting the light and air around her until a jumbled swirl. "Lumusis!" She shouted, her words were so muddled that she couldn't recognize their meaning. Then she realized it wasn't the world being distorted, but her own mind. She stopped, turned around, and began walking toward Elruin, still laying atop Clackybones.

I'm sorry, I can't stop it! She tried to shout, tried to scream, but not a sound came from her mouth. As part of training all members of the Scouts are exposed to mind control magic, so that they can get some experience fighting the magic, but never before had she been puppeted like this. The magical energy cost for taking absolute control of a body was fatal to most mages, so the majority relied on far more subtle methods, and the few who thought themselves above the slow method found themselves dead in short order.

She did as her training bid, and flooded her body with her natural magic, not to retake control of her body, but to make control too expensive for the puppeteer to maintain. As with most forms of magic, it was easier to break the caster than it was to break the spell.

More important in this situation, however, was that it alerted everyone that something was wrong with her. Black mist roiled and blended across her native blue-green light like a storm at sea as seen from under the waves, and it would be a small miracle if they didn't attract monsters from the beacon of energy she had turned herself into.

Or would it? She was no longer alive, so perhaps the monsters wouldn't find her energy so appetizing. Such were the thoughts that ran unbidden through her mind while she lacked all control of her body. At least her puppeteer didn't know how to use her speed and agility, so she walked toward Elruin, and bought time for the others to react.

"Cali?" Lemia took a step back, uncertain of of the situation. Her short time as an adventurer had not prepared her for such magic.

Scratch, however, had been around longer and seen more stuff than everyone else in the team combined and multiplied by ten. He dropped down in front of Cali's face. "So, I'm about to possess you again. You know the drill, this time without the Faustian bargains and I can't kill you."

"No!" Elruin gasped. "Taint. Not safe." She hummed a few short, painful notes, and Clackybones began to trot away faster than the controller could make Cali walk.

Scratch backed away, for he still didn't understand the nature of Calenda's construction, and had to defer to Elruin's judgment. If he had to save the little necromancer by destroying Calenda, he would do so without hesitation, but it appeared to him that there was a less drastic solution that would hold up for the time being.

Calenda felt the control slacken, leaving her paralyzed rather than attacking. A relief, until Clackybones began to buck under Elruin. Weak at first, but growing in wildness with each alteration of the notes. It's not a mind controller, it's a necromancer. In her time with Elruin, the girl had never once exerted upon her the power that a negation mage could exert upon the unliving. She was not prepared for this.

"Fine!" Scratch flew away from Cali, and into barely controlled horse monster. It calmed, then froze. "Now can one of you do something!? These guys just disabled three of us and we don't even know where they are!"

"Get Elruin off the horse!" Ketak commanded. In spite of her solitary nature, she was an experienced commander and veteran warrior. "Work on healing her. If we're fighting necromancers, we're going to want her fighting before... Merat!"

The whip-like tendril bones of a void monster began to roll toward them, moving in slow, jerky motions.

Lemia began taking Elruin from her saddle. "It's not a skilled necromancer! If it was, we'd be in a lot more trouble!" Which served to explain why they went for Elruin first. With her unable to give commands, the enemy necromancer could take control.

Ketak took a step forward, facing off against the void monster. It lashed out with tendril that was more annoyance than threat, far from the machine of death that it was before. Ketak swatted it away with her sword that had once belonged to Claron. She could have burned the corpse to unmoving ash if she wanted, but that would have given the necromancer reason to take control of another of the stationary corpses and revealed the full extend of her strength. There was a time for every strategy, and now was the time to be underestimated.

Meanwhile, Elruin helped as best she could to be laid down on her stomach by Lemia.

"Jeez, Ell, what is with you and arrows? Next chance we get to upgrade your armor has got to be anti-projectiles." Lemia spoke to calm herself as much as the wounded girl, while working out how to extract the arrow and heal the wound. "Huh, this wood is alchemical. Probably how it cut through your defenses. I'm going to be here for a while, but at least I can use this to heal you through your armor."

While Lemia worked with minor bursts of healing to halt and undo the internal bleeding, Elruin dragged her violin up near her, then set the bow on it. She couldn't speak, but her arms still worked, so she could play. The disjointed strings of music did not amount to much, but they shattered the chains holding Cali with but a few moments of effort.

She would have to trust her elder sister to handle the rest. She closed her eyes and struggled to catch her breath.

Calenda moved the moment she was released, having gained a reasonable idea of where the controller was hiding during her time trapped. With her magic, a general idea was all she needed.

First, the forest exploded into a cloud of dust, as she dumped a massive amount of power into the lifecycle of the plants. The area blossomed into pollen and flower petals, blinding better than her fog cloud ever had, for it even worked against lifesight and choked the lungs of most things unfortunate enough to breathe the reproductive spores.

The best part was that she could still see through it, to an extent suitable for combat, so she was prepared when a humanoid attacker came out of the woods at her. He felt her, and didn't bother trying to play a long game against a guisarme. He got close, swung again and again with pair of short swords that forced her to back away, unable to get the distance to exploit her weapon, or close enough distance to use her gloves.

It reminded her of her practice sessions with Juna, who exemplified the art of turning a full offensive assault into the best defensive strategy. In comparison, this opponent was an amateur, but an amateur in comparison to Juna was still a skilled enough frontline fighter to force Cali back a step with every swing, each one a little closer to hitting home than the last.

At this rate, she could lose before buying more than a minute, until she felt her strength increase with the power of Elruin's music.

Elruin continued to play her violin while still laying on her stomach. The shaft still wedged in her back, but her body as restored as one could hope for without removing the weapon. It was sloppy, imprecise, and ugly, but it was enough.

"No!" The attacker shouted. "NO!!!" With a burst of power that exceeded what Elruin had granted Calenda, he began assailing his opponent until a minor mistake left Cali missing a forearm, and her guisarme on the ground in two pieces.

Ketak moved to intercept, but she was not an agile fighter the way Calenda and this attacker were, so she found herself watching in horror as Clackybones rammed into the man in order to shield Elruin from harm.

Lemia turned her attention away from healing in order to generate a burst of disruptive magic of her own. One of the few offensive spells an aspectless mage could cast, that of dismantling the structure of another spell. In this case, the numerous enchantment spells which their foe relied upon. It wouldn't hold forever, but for a short time it could render an enemy without magic protection.

It failed, and Clackybones was bisected.

"Amplify his spells!" Elruin gasped upon giving the command. She began to work her violin, desperate to eek out what little power she could.

Lemia hesitated for but a moment before deciding to pray Elruin knew what she was doing. She began a general spell which would improve the power supply available to an enchantment, and by doing so give it a temporary increase in power. Destructive over the long term, but in the short term it could make the difference between life and death.

Then Elruin changed the nature of the spell, infusing it with her own necromantic power. That spell then changed the enchantments on the assailant, turning them into spells which worked by siphoning necromantic power from the environment instead of more general magic. Power which Elruin was supplying in greater quantities than any normal human could survive.

He reacted fast, forcing all of his enchantments to deactivate and dissipate before the necromantic power scoured any semblance of life from his body.

Then he stumbled, swayed, and fell sideways.

Suggested Listening

"Four below, he's a boy." Calenda stood over the kid, looking down as sweat ran from his face like rainwater. He was, at most, a year older than Elruin, though with his soft green skin and yellow hair, age was the only thing they had in common. "Sylvanesti, at least half, with the pointed ears."

"M-my sister. Give her back." He tried to sit, stand, call on any magic he might have left, but all he could do was lay and gasp. He lacked even the strength to use magic to kill himself, so long as Lemia kept maintaining an antimagic effect over him.

"Sister?" Calenda said. "I've seen three Sylvanesti in my entire life, and that was years ago."

"Liar. Necromancer. Abomination. Kill. All."

"Don't get too attached, Sis," Scratch said. "He's seen far too much for us to let him go, we have to kill him."

"Why?" Elruin looked from her position on the ground. For now, she was stable, if still paralyzed.

"Yeah, the look in those eyes, that's the look of a fanatic. Betcha money our abomination prey took his sister, and now he's out for revenge. He'll never believe we're not allies, either, mortals can't tell the difference between one army of walking dead and another. Kid's got skills as a mind mage, too, so we can't hold him forever, we can't change his mind, and we sure can't let him go."

Cali couldn't believe what she was about to say, but she said it anyway. "What about your oathbond magic?"

"In his condition? Great way to add a resident to the doll house. But maybe you should do it, what with the missing arm and all."

"N-no." Somehow, the child found strength enough to lift his head off the ground. Then he fell back and began convulsing.

"What now?" Cali stood back, and moved to place herself between the boy and Elruin.

"Fairie dust." Lemia recognized the symptoms, there weren't many from the slums who didn't.

"What?" Elruin kept looking at the boy, whose life energies began to surge to superhuman levels in some areas while dimming to less than the soil beneath them in others, fluctuating back and forth in a chaotic, nonsensical pattern that was sure to kill him.

"It's a drug," Cali said. "Small amounts give a boost to magical power for a short time, but this kid overdosed himself to fight us."

"Well, then I retract my statement, we no longer have to do a thing but hide the body. Unless we we still want a new doll."


=====

Not quite early like I hoped, but it is a 2500 work chapter to make up for the lack yesterday.

It is Elruin's fate to suffer as all glass cannon builds suffer. It's a great build when you have a meat shield and/or the element of surprise. Not so much when on the receiving end of the ambush.

Cali picked up a new spell in the downtime. Several of them, actually, but this one will bring sympathies to the baddie from every seasonal allergy sufferer. Pollen dense enough to block sight... ouch...

Fairy Dust will be a narcotic that can be acquired in the game. It's description shall read "The dealer insists it does not contain the powdered remains of actual fairies. But it is still illegal."

I like this chapter. And it'll be one of the interesting vote choices made by players. Do they try to save or kill this kid? Once again, a path where any number of outcomes are valid, but have specific consequences.

 

A quick forward: please be nice and give upvotes to today's music selection. The guy who made them is somehow even more obscure as I am, and I want give him a bit of a boost. No, he didn't ask me to, offer payment, or anything of that nature.

Suggested Listening

"Cali, you're hurt." Elruin's concern over the boy was a matter of curiosity over the strange magical distortions going on, which she now had an answer to. If he died, then it was his fault for hurting her and her sister. "I'm hurt, too. And Mister Clackybones."

Calenda sighed, and with one last glance at this stupid kid trying to save his sister from the wrong foe, then went to help her own sister. She knelt down, and examined how the bolt entered her. It wasn't deep, but there was no way she could push in through the center torso mass without hitting something important, and risking Elruin's death in the process. Which made this a great deal more complicated.

"Okay, I'm going to need you to hold very still and be a brave girl." She gripped the shaft, then with a burst of power snapped it off with about an inch sticking out of Elruin's armor. The necromantic energies revitalized her own wounded body in the process.

"Okay, now help me roll you over so you're laying on my lap." Cali planted her knees in the dirt near Elruin, feet spread so she could sit on the ground. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but it would work for her needs. With only one arm, she needed Elruin's help.

Elruin grunted in pain, but they did manage to get her in position. Now her back was on Cali's lap, with what of the arrow in the gap between Cali's legs. "Like this?"

"Exactly like that, now this is going to feel strange, but hold still." Cali reached her one remaining hand down to touch the remains of the arrow. With some concentration, she found the fibrous plant origins of the projectile, and changed them with her magic. Working dead plant material was difficult, worse was the metal of the arrowhead.

She concentrated on her earth magic, and through it the weak power she had over metal. It was enough to alter the arrow's composition to a material more akin to rubber, then to a gel, then to a substance not unlike water in fluidity, but retaining the other properties of wood and steel, including weight. The liquid fell out of the hole in Elruin's back, forming a pool of brown, silver, and crimson..

"There you are, now all you need is a little time and you'll be fine." It was a good thing they found a regenerative shard that could actually work on the girl, though like all healing magic that it didn't work well when the weapon was still inside the body. "But stay still for now, that was in your spine." She looked over at the dead boy. Whatever his faults, he was quite the marksman. Her next glance was at Clackybones, also rendered lame by the severing of it spine.

Elruin smiled up at her. "Thank you."

"Hey, what are sisters for?" Perhaps not the best comparison, given their actual families' actions. "Well, you look healed enough to stand, just take it slow."

Elruin climbed to her feet, cautious not to move her back any more than she had to until she felt more confident. "My legs feel funny."

"That's normal, should pass in a few minutes." Cali had dealt with many spinal injuries in her career as a Scout. Sometimes she was known to treat one. "If you feel any pain, tell me. And keep your back straight, I don't want you bending for a few more minutes." Even as she gave those instructions, she made her way to her severed limb and what was left of her guisarme.

"Oh." Elruin looked down at her violin, then with great care kneeled without allowing her back to bend.

"Pity, I liked this weapon," she said as she grabbed her arm. With as much spare necromantic energies bled off from her improved gloves, she didn't need Elruin's help reattaching her body part, but finding a good weaponsmith to restore her guisarme was going to be a pain.

Meanwhile, Elruin began to play for the corpse, to capture glimpse of the history that led him to be here. Flashes of a face, young, innocent, and with eyes of sapphire blue looked back at her amidst a chaotic jumble of anger, pain, and confusion. She stepped back, dropping the violin in the process. "W-what was that?"

"That, oh Lady Elruin na Cali, was drugs. Even in death, they ruin you." Scratch drifted down from his vantage point above them. "With as much of the stuff as he sucked down, I'm surprised he hasn't melted. He was a tough one."

"Oh." Elruin picked her instrument up for a second time. "If he's strong, then I can use him." She began to play again, twisting the necromancy in the atmosphere. In addition to doing what little was needed to finish repairing Cali and Mister Clackybones, Elruin let her song pass along and through Scratch, taking just a little of his taint along with that from the other undead, and adding it to the boy's body. She knew not to use her own soul to empower the undead, or it, too, would be infected by the taint, so she took existing taint, like using coals from an old fire to start a new one.

"Ell? What are you doing?"

Lemia watched on in horror while the body twitched, his fingers clenched, and he began to sit up. Muscles which had been charged with, then destroyed by, the magical energies in Fairy Dust, were now infused with necromancy and taint.

Elruin looked at her new minion, who didn't seem any different than the soldier's corpse she had control over. "It's normal."

Calenda, now holding both halves of her guisarme, approached. "Elruin." She trailed off, unable to find the words she needed.

Ketak, aloof as she typically was, watched as well. She'd grown accustomed to the use of violent enemies and animals as tools, but to turn what was ultimately a misguided child into a tool did not sit well with her. She clenched her sword, and considered incinerating it as a mercy.

"What?" Scratch looked at the people who were watching the new 'dolly' climb to its feet. "It's just a corpse, like any other. Even Claron wasn't special once he became a meat puppet. Now, let's get moving. We've got a necromancer to put into a grave and, maybe, drag him back out. Then perhaps do it all over again, they can be tenacious when they wanna be. We've let this brat waste enough of our time, already."

Suggested Listening

"Having trouble sleeping?" Cali remained in the tree, looking out across the irregular terrain. Here, where the trees became sparse, was where they would face the most dangerous leg of their journey. The largest beasts did not do well in dense forests, where humans could best exploit their natural agility and small size. In the mountains, and further out the plains.

"I don't need to sleep, thanks to my sarite." Moments later, she stifled a yawn. "Besides, both of you are still up."

Ketak grunted. She, too, watched the plains, but dwarven eyesight was weaker than humans. Instead, she devoted herself to hearing the forest around them; a sense humans were notoriously weak with. "Dwar'es are ca'e dwellers, we sleep in naps. Can sleep while walking i' we ha'e to."

"You expended a great deal of energy today." Calenda kept looking outward, at the desolate foothills. The things out there were tough enough to survive where dragons hunted, and there was precious little for them to eat aside each other. They were the main reason Engewal never tried to expand the empire. "Your sarite's good enough to recover focus faster, or let you skip out on sleep, but not both."

"I know, I know, I'm just having trouble sleeping."

"Still thinking about that boy." Calenda couldn't say she was close to Lemia, but the two had worked together with the hospital and other tasks of the 'estate' over the last year and a half, so she was comfortable calling her a friend, and knew her moods.

Lemia kicked a rock away, which failed to make he feel any better. What she wanted to do was scream, an act which might get them all killed, perhaps that's what she was hoping for. "I can't get him, what's left of him, out of my mind. I've seen more people than I care to count die to drugs, but with them, they were like slow suicides. They died to escape from themselves, it happens, it was their choice. He died for a cause."

Ketak had seen such a thing many times in the past. Death was never easy, but the first death of an innocent struck people particularly hard. Especially when it was followed by what Elruin did. "He died a warrior, like many children have. It's a war out here, and there's never been a war without casualties on both sides." Perhaps it was her own conscience she was trying to assuage.

"Then Elruin turns him into an abomination. Uh..." Lemia stopped, realizing what she implied. "Sorry. I think it's because you still act like you, so it's easy to forget you're not alive anymore."

"Funny," Cali said. "As time goes on, I'm finding it easier to forget I ever was alive. I was as disgusted as you were, but without the heartbeat, or upset stomach, or even the ability to feel like I was going to cry. You ever been so passionately emotional about something that you knew was stupid, but couldn't help but obsess over even though you knew better?"

"Yes, I have been in love before, and you're still not my type."

Ketak remained silent. Not because she didn't care, but because had nothing to say. She had realized long ago dwarves didn't have the same emotional behaviors as humans, the idea of a sick stomach was alien to her, but the feelings of a walking corpse must be even more alien.

"Imagine that, but the opposite. I know I should be upset with what she did, but I can't seem to find the fire to make myself care much. I've even begun to forget what hunger feels like. It's disturbing how comfortable I've become with not being disturbed." Cali kept looking out for threats in spite of the nature of the conversation. Besides, the full moon was beautiful on this comfortable summer night. "Speaking of, you've been spending too much time around Scratch."

"I think it's Elruin who needs to spend less time around Scratch. I think we can lay most of the blame for this mess on his metaphorical shoulders. What I still can't understand is why he was okay with turning that kid into another of her 'dolls', but he was so opposed to doing the same to you?"

"I don't know, but I think it's because I was made intelligent," Cali said. "Whatever else, Elruin didn't tamper with the boy's soul. She just borrowed some taint from Scratch's pool, and used that. I'm different, somehow. I was never much of a theologian, and from what I remember, what Elruin did in making me was impossible according to the church."

"There are no answers in thaumaturgy, either, and I've been looking as hard as I can without crossing into 'ways to get yourself burned alive' territory. You are an impossibility there, too, near as I can tell. All I can confirm is that the act of creating undead by definition creates a permanent taint which is detectable and will ultimately consume the mage who does so. I guess it doesn't count if you're just spreading already existent taint rather than making it yourself, and also not for... whatever it is that you are."

"I'm still undead." Now Calenda took her eyes off the terrain for a moment. "That boy knew just enough necromancy to slow me down, but it proved I'm as vulnerable to it being used against me as anyone else. An unscrupulous necromancer with the right skills could reach inside and rework my everything, even change my thoughts and beliefs."

"Do you think that Elruin's done that to you?"

"No." Cali looked back out at the external threats. "She doesn't have the sophistication to build the lie she'd need to build, and even after I died, I've given advice to her that she would have to have already known if she rewrote my mind. Advice she often ignores, as children do. If she inserted false thoughts into my head, why would they be ones that make me argue with her?"

"But you're afraid she might, some day."

"If you had asked that question yesterday, I'd have threatened to punch you, but now... now, I don't know. I thought I knew her better than this."

Ketak considered now a time to speak. "Perhaps she 'ears she needs to. People do terrible 'ings in 'e name o' war, and we 'ace 'e most terrible enemy, one e'en more horrible 'an 'e goblins." It surprised her to hear herself say it, but goblins only violated and ate the dead, they didn't make them rise as weapons to slaughter their remaining family. "She is a child. Children need teachers."

"I look back at the things I did at her age and let's just say I'm not proud of them." Lemia tried to see something in the black emptiness of the foothills, but the moon illuminated only small features to her eyes. "Remember what I said about drug overdoses? I sold to most of them, but here I am today, a successful professional Artisan. And I had to turn myself around, while Elruin has us to help her."

"You're right, she's still young," Cali said. "I'll talk to her in the morning and try to get her to understand that it's not okay to turn innocent people into monsters. Please, promise me, if it turns out we're wrong about her and she changes me, that you will end me. And her."

"I can't make that promise." Lemia hoped she wouldn't be judged too harshly. "I wouldn't know how to begin to accomplish such a thing. As you are, now, would even Lord Garit and Lady Juna be able to stop the pair of you? At best, I might be able to get Erra to have Lyra hunt you down. Even then, I'd never make it back to Arila from here."

"I swear, one warrior to ano'er, I will 'ind a way to kill you both," Ketak said. "I' I ha'e to destroy mysel' to do so, 'en she cannot turn me into an abomination alongside you."

"I understand." Cali closed her eyes, took a breath which achieved nothing. "Well, good thing I'm a Scout. Walking into impossible situations without backup is our duty in life. Why should it be different in death?"

Meanwhile, undetected by the three women, Scratch observed from the ethereal realm. He had revealed to them his ability to cloak his taint, but had always been careful to remain detectable by other means before today. He learned long before these ladies were born to keep a few secrets. Now he had to decide what to do with this one. What he knew for certain was that Elruin must be kept ignorant of this murder pact. She couldn't be trusted to lie, not to her abomination amongst abominations of an elder sister.

So he would do as he always did: observe, remember, and wait.

=====

That is one thick, juicy, plot.

Sorry, I had to... You have no idea how goddamn many unintentional innuendos I had to rewrite in the first half of this chapter, and I needed to vent it somewhere. I must have deleted 'shaft' a dozen or so times, 'wood' at least that many, 'head' more than once, and 'thighs' once or twice. Maybe I just have a dirty mind.

Eh, whatever, when Requiem Machinabridged comes out, the writers will (un)fix it, depending on who you ask.

I was personally hoping for the 'good' route on this one (Not the stupidly good 'heal him and let him go' pick- by far the most moral option, not so sane- but the 'heal him and keep him captive while trying to talk him out of trying to kill the poor, lovable, but misunderstood necrololi' option). My voters went the complete opposite, skipping over the neutral 'bury the brat' path in favor of the blatantly evil 'interrogate the corpse, then add it to the doll pile' option.

In an alternate timeline, the team would be talking to the kid and explaining their various reasons to accept Elruin's use of the undead. Now, instead, they must remind themselves of it... same topics, opposite direction.

But, well, that's the way the game plays out at times. I'm here to write, not block options (save those that are impossible for in-game reasons).

It just occurred to me- and will definitely be made into more direct themes in the final version- that this story has remarkable parallels to Pinocchio (more the original Collodi story than any of the remakes), only flipped upside down. It's Elruin's humanity in the balance, while she's turning real boys into puppets and risks the same happening to her. I guess this means Scratch is now a cricket. Awesome.

 

Suggested Listening

Elruin awoke to Cali sitting next to her sleeping bag. The woman put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you feeling okay?"

She sat up, wondering about the soft tone in Cali's voice. She decided that her back didn't hurt anymore, and the magic in her armor had repaired the leather overnight. "Yes. Is something wrong?"

"No. A little." Cali looked off in the distance. "I want to talk to you about your new 'dolly'. Why did you turn that kid into a zombie?"

"Because he shot me and cut off your arm." Elruin remained sitting, but scooted her way out of her bag. "Why?"

"And it doesn't bother you that he wasn't a bandit?" Cali reached out and put a hand on Elruin's shoulder. "That he was a boy trying to save his sister?"

Elruin considered the question for a moment. "No. He tried to kill me."

"And he paid for that mistake with his life," Cali said. "It's sad, but all of us out here understand a single mistake means death. If we hadn't made our peace with that, we'd remain behind the walls. But we don't sign up to be turned into an abomination. Myself excepted, I suppose."

"But we use my dollies all the time."

"Never ones you made, yourself." Cali closed her eyes, trying to find a way to explain basic morality to a child whose family abandoned her to die. "Until now, we've been scavenging them, usually ones made by Scratch, or using animals. Turning people into zombies is bad, it's bad, and it hurts your soul."

"You don't have to worry." Elruin still had trouble following this train of thought, but she thought she got it. "I didn't make it, myself. I used some spare energy from Scratch, so the taint never touched my soul."

"That's not- there's more to spiritual wellbeing than whether it's been tainted by undeath. Look at Scratch and look at me. Save the lack of a pulse, the two of us are nothing alike."

"Right, because your soul was insulated and preserved in whole form," Elruin said. "It never had a chance to be eroded and tainted."

Cali sighed, then tried a different approach. "What if you swapped placed with the boy? If it was you who was trying to save me. It could happen, we know i'm vulnerable to necromancers, and we're about to face a style of magic none of us have ever seen before. By the end of this there's a chance that some of us, or all of us, will be enslaved by that necromancer. How does that make you feel?"

Elruin's eyes narrowed. "I won't let that happen." The idea that someone might take Cali from her brought out the emotions which other approaches had failed.

"I've said that many times about many things," Cali said. "I was right most of the time, but not always. We don't know that we're strong enough to stop this monster, and you've seen his victims, their memories, and the horrors they went through."

Elruin fought back a shudder, thinking back on the people being carved apart by that composite undead monster constructed using magics she had never seen before and had little idea how to explain. "Right. He's bad and we're going to stop him."

"How can you call him bad, while doing what is effectively the same exact thing to that boy? Killing people in self defense is one thing, but using their remains as weapons against your enemies? That's exactly the reason we're hunting him down."

Elruin's stomach hitched, as she realized she didn't have a strong argument. Other than that the other necromancer was more skilled at the process, there wasn't much difference she could name other than the argument she'd repeating. "But he attacked first."

"Which, again, is reason enough for his death," Cali said. "Not for what came after. Now, please, exorcise him so we can give him a proper funeral. And from now on, try not to make any more monsters, because I'm starting to think there's something more subtle than taint in play. Dodging side effects by spreading instead of creating is too obvious a solution, yet no necromancer has been known to walk away unscathed from what you did yesterday. Speaking as one of those abominations, and as your big sister."

"Okay." Elruin still wasn't certain about Cali's argument, but something about making the dolly had upset her. Not unlike the first Mister Clackybones had. As she picked up Mister Squishybones, she decided that it didn't take too long before Cali was okay with her other dollies, so she could wait for now. It wasn't that good a dolly to begin with.

Soon, they all stood around the funeral pyre of the boy whose name they hadn't known.

"And may the fate which lay beyond be more merciful upon him than this world." Calenda finished the eulogy. "He will be remembered."

"He will be remembered." Elruin said her part, but wondered who it was that would remember him. His sister was either dead, or had been converted into a weapon and soon would die by magic they had no means to reverse.

Now that their path took them into the open, it soon became clear that they had far, far more immediate problems to worry about. Elruin's squirrels, lacking trees, found perches on her shoulders while she was forced to abandon Clackybones and her dollies in the distance, so that she wouldn't be identified for a different abomination necromancer and attacked on sight again.

They still followed a series of deep valleys, relying upon Calenda's botanical magic to help them track a safe path through a wilderness where monsters feared to tread. In her head, Elruin bemoaned the fact that she couldn't move openly, for she felt confident Mister Clackybones could still outrun the monsters which resided here.

In the distance roamed things which Elruin had read of in books, yet never given much thought. She had imagined that buffalo were little more than giant cows, yet the alert wild animals which wandered the distant plains bore little resemblance to the docile bovines she grew up with. They moved like an army, with their large males on the edge of the troupe, ready to defend the females and young with their massive curved horns and thick battle-scarred hide. As they grazed, their pack of hundreds moved as if a single animal, serving to frighten off the countless predators.

Suggested Listening

"Down!" Cali hissed, then dived toward them. "It's a dragon!"

They dropped into the narrow, muddy, stream bed, not daring to move as they prayed the beast could not hear their hammering hearts. They felt it approach overhead long before they heard it, a storm of ancient, concentrated magic. This one passed overhead, its body the size of Arila's church, each of its six long, broad wings wide enough to block out the light of the sun, each made of flame so hot it burned blue.

Elruin stared at the hardened, absolute, nature of its life force. Most living things were in their own way like waves in a lake, with energy dancing back and forth where needed or where depleted, an adaptive and ever-changing balance of energies. This dragon's metaphorical lake was frozen in the form of ice as strong as steel.

It twisted and plummeted to the ground at speeds that felt far too fast for a thing so massive, then at the last moment righted itself, kicking air out beneath it in a clap of thunder that kicked boulders off the ground and uprooted one of the rare few trees existed in the decimated landscape. If any of them had been able to hear after the eardrum shattering explosion of air, they would have heard the dismayed angry grunting of the bison herd, struggling to reorient themselves after the attack.

With exception to Cali, they were all too busy gripping their heads in agony to notice, or watch the dragon came away with one eight-ton bison in each of its ten powerful talons. The dragon, too, paid a price for its meal, as the muscular animals bucked their heads backwards and embedded their dagger-sharp horns into the thick hide of the dragon.

It shook them, until death caused them to stop them from inflicting countless tiny wounds upon the giant predator. Then it turned and flew off toward the deeper part of the mountains, toward its home where it would eat and hibernate until hunger once again drove it out into the world to kill again.

"Entek!" Calenda muttered, being the first to recover from the shockwave and pain. The others, thanks to regenerative magic, were beginning to get their hearing back when the creature had become not but a bright blue star shining in the noon sky.

Lemia got her breathing under control, then rubbed her ears to drain the blood from them. "That was a dragon? I thought you said dragons were about as strong as Lyra, not... that thing was like a god!"

"Some dragons are stronger than others." Cali kept her head just above their trench, looking in all directions at the predators and prey alike as they recovered from the disruption to their usual schedule. "Legend has it they can live forever, and never stop growing in power, but there can't be many as powerful as that one out in the world."

"So, does that make us lucky or unlucky?" Ketak rubbed her head, still trying to shake off the experience. At times, the superior silmid hearing was more curse than blessing.

"If we had time and were equipped for it, I'd have said lucky." Calenda considered cursing again. "It got cut up by those buffalo, which means blood. If we could get it back to Arila fresh."

Meanwhile, Elruin was busy cooing soft nothings to her furry monster squirrels, who had been as upset at the humans but lacked the intellectual wherewithal to rationalize and speak of their fears. Instead, they hid in Elruin's arms, seeking comfort in the necromancer and her energies which sustained and healed them.

"Even a vial of normal dragon blood is worth a small fortune." Lemia still rubbed her ears, and had started using magic to draw together some water from the air so that she could clean herself better. "We could have been rich."

"I can track it," Elruin said. The fragments of dragon-energy radiated from the ground like stars of their own, distorting the area with strange magics. Even these small drops were second only to such beings as Lyra, and the magic powering Shelter's peace aura.

"No, it's better that we don't." Calenda, too, felt the distorted magic, but she understood its consequences better than Elruin, because she had seen how such distortions worked. "Dragon blood is one of the components in making warped sarite. Unless you have the right protection, it can turn you into an insane monster, or any sort of other unpredictable events. Or you'll explode, that's possible. And that's normal dragons, not the sort of monster that eats other dragons."

Those humans in the group could see, even at a distance, as those plants and animals unlucky enough to be close to the splatters of blood began to warp and mutate. Insects grew to sizes which could rival the bison, only to die moments later as vines wrapped around them, strangled them to death, and used their corpses as fertilizer. This was warning enough that they lacked the ability to work with such a dangerous substance.

"Come on, after that, the predators will be spooked and afraid. We might even make it to Seyid before nightfall. Then we can consider ourselves lucky."

=====

My current voters are doing their best to turn Elruin into a sociopath (psychopath? Eh, an absolute monster, doesn't matter what the doctors would call it). Which is fine and dandy, the story is more than equipped to handle that outcome. Such is the joy of having a 'neurologically atypical' main character.

Sometimes, I like reminding my characters that there are things above them on the food chain. And there are things above those things on the food chain. And then there's gods. Some of which are optional superbosses.

Fun fact, the American Buffalo isn't actually a buffalo. It's a bison. Go figure. I'm also aware that real world buffalo don't get nearly the size of the things in this chapter. If that is your complaint in a world where something the size a small cathedral can fly, swoop the ground with enough speed and power to create sonic booms, and then right itself without exploding into something resembling undercooked pasta, then I don't know what to tell you. Physics as we know them are about sixteen widdershins toward blue, buddy.

Dragons, like many reptiles, are cannibalistic. Part of what keeps their population down. It's not like they have any other natural predators.

 

Suggested Listening

Scratch allowed himself to drift away from the group, knowing full well what would soon come. He was surprised only that Elruin found him sooner than expected, and asked him outright.

"What happened to the other necromancers you've been with?"

He understood the girl was about as subtle as a god razing a city to the ground, but had expected the question to be lead up to, rather than the first words from her mouth. "Oh, they died. Welcome to mortality, there is only one way out."

"How did they die?" Elruin crossed her arms, acting as she thought a mother should act when chiding a child. "What happened to them before their deaths?"

Scratch wondered for a moment if someone else might find what she was doing to be endearing, or perhaps annoying, but he had little emotion aside his goals, and the willingness to sacrifice everything for them, including mortality. "Mostly violence, defiant to the very end. A handful locked themselves in libraries which would later become their tombs." He paused for a moment, having realized that these questions were her leadup, and finished with the answer which was the real question. "And a few took a walk on my side of the great divide. They, more than any of the others, were fools. No sane living thing wants to be what we are."

Now the spark of scholar's curiosity lit in Elruin's eyes. Here she could pursue her concerns without realizing what those concerns were. "What are you?"

"I keep telling you, I'm neither theologian nor thaumaturge." Scratch drifted along, just out of arm's reach of the necromancer. Though he acted like he was lounging in the air, he remained alert with senses not limited by physical organs.

In the context of the conversation and their language, it was clear what they were speaking of. "I once told Cali I thought undead were made from resentment, hatred and jealousy of live, that undead aren't truly negation, because negation brings the end of emotion, while the undead have lots of emotion, all of it bad. Now, I'm not sure."

"I'd say that's not far off, in a scholarly sort of way." Scratch said many times he was no scholar, but scholars fell short as well. How could one describe the hateful, cruel impulses that were so strong that even the combined forces of Life and Death rejected you? Humans had difficulty enough describing love, an emotion oft touted as hate's opposing equal, yet love was too weak to survive long amongst the dead, while hatred could power an abomination forever.

Elruin walked along in silence, thinking her own thoughts until it became clear Scratch wasn't going to continue on his own. "What do you think the undead are?"

"If I was forced to hazard a guess?" Scratch spoke just to buy time. Elruin was not going to drop the topic, which meant he needed a way to give her answers that didn't give her real answers. It was far too soon for her to know the actual truth. Then he switch to the language of death, unwilling to allow the living to hear what he was about to say. "I think we're like the void holes. Whether by accident or intent, we're wounds in the universe. Neither life nor death, nor any other traditional concept."

Elruin considered his words, but wasn't satisfied. Theory was fine, but it wasn't getting her to the answer she needed. "Cali says you're dangerous, and it's bad for my soul. You said you've worked with lots of necromancers who used the undead. What happened to their souls?" She, too, switched to the language of the dead, trusting Scratch's judgment.

"Once again, I don't know. I don't know what a soul is, or what it does, or if it exists." Scratch turned to face away from Elruin, or at least shifted his imprint of a presence in the living world to make it appear as such. "All I remember of death is a force ripping me apart while I fought to hold myself together. Memories and thoughts and feelings destroyed until only that small fragment of self that could not be consumed, the part which consumed instead, remained. If those are your soul, then I don't think there's anything beyond. No justice, no judgment, no arbiter of morality, what happens to the flame when a candle is blown out?"

"Cali didn't mention anything like that."

"She didn't experience it. You prevented the forces of death from ripping her soul, if you want to call it that, apart in the first place. She didn't have to fight for her existence, she didn't earn it." Scratch stopped, surprised at his own emotion. It had been a long time since he lost that much control, and as this conversation progressed the chances grew that it would happen again, perhaps to cataclysmic results.

"I get what you're asking." He chose to cut his losses and hope that the closest thing he was willing to say to the truth was enough. "Did any of my past partners wind up tainted? Yes, I'd say a full third of them, most by choice and plenty by accident. And most of those who didn't died too soon. We are dangerous tools, same as the void and the things inside it. You should be careful with us, no doubt. That includes your dear big sister, whose only hold on sanity and that soul she so values comes from your protection. Can you shield yourself like you shield her?"

Elruin considered the question, but her magic wasn't good for looking inward. "I don't know."

"Then neither do I." Scratch drifted into the sky, and faded from sight. The conversation was over, but his next victim was going to suffer unspeakable agony to make him feel better.

Suggested Listening

There was little time to speak during the hard trek across the rough land. If not for healing and resilience granted to them by magic, Elruin and Lemia might have died to the brutal pace Cali and Ketak set for them. By the time they rounded the hills to get their first look at a Seyid city, Lemia was beyond caring and even Elruin's supernatural toughness was reaching its limits.

The first thing which struck Elruin's eyes was the most obvious. "There's no wall?" Never before had she imagined such a thing as a city without walls. "Why don't they have walls?"

"Out here, walls are useless." Calenda spoke down to her from a position along a narrow ledge of rock that allowed her to look over the hill at the threats of the plains. "Even the buffalo could knock down a wall, and they're amongst the least dangerous things you'll find here. The plainsmen survive by building bunkers and tunnels. The big plains monsters are easy to spot from a distance. They spread out their shielding sarite to hide much larger territories, then run for the tunnels if anything wanders closer. Now, Ell, I need you to get out of your armor."

"Why?" Elruin looked down at her outfit, right at Decima clinging to her upper leg. Glowing red eyes blinked at her, before the creature felt shy and ran around to her back.

"Because that runebone necromancer's been collecting from this region long enough that at least one of them came out looking for revenge, and it's going to be hard enough to get them to trust us as is. Best case, they suspect us and say nothing. Worst case, a truthsayer asks if you've ever made any undead. Believe me, you do not want a fight with the plainsmen. They're hard enough to work with when they're on your side."

Elruin had started undressing as Calenda spoke, much to the annoyance of her three furry pets. While the nature of undeath and magic was a murky topic, she trusted her sister's judgment when it came to dealing with people. "What do we tell them?"

"Most of us tell the truth; a priestess, a scholar, and a forge mage sent from Arila to find the necromancer that attacked us. Ell, you're a farmgirl I found along the way and had to take with us, because we couldn't turn back. Just try to keep the pet squirrels from causing any trouble. We'll tell them the things are a weird magic breed that can sniff out necromancy."

"Let me tell 'em about 'e rats." Ketak gave the beasts a glance. "E'eryone knows silmid are masters o' magical animals. A sellsword dwar' wi' pets to track down abominations won't raise suspicions."

Lemia smirked at the suggestion, while helping Elruin undress from her armor. "Isn't all of this a little too on the nose?"

"As close as we can get, protects us from Truthsayers later." Cali scaled further up the hill, to make certain there weren't any nearby surprises. "Once they get to know us at least a little, we can talk to their leadership about our concerns. I'm just trying to keep us from being lynched on the outskirts."

"Jeez, they sound like wonderful people," Lemia muttered. "At this rate I'm wondering why we're bothering to help them."

"Truth, they're not that bad, once they get to know you. They just don't like strangers, especially ones who act like they think they're better than them. Speaking of, Ell, is there anything about my body that makes it so I can't eat?"

Elruin, now removing the last part of her armor, considered her answer. "No, I don't think so. But it might be hard to get it out after."

"Then I'm going to smell like a terrible drunk until we figure out a way. These people love their alcohol, and breaking bread is the surest way to make friends in their society. Especially if you bought the bread off them." Cali jumped down from her spot. "We're clear for the minute, now let's book it. Scratch... know what, you probably could sneak into the city, but if you do, don't come anywhere near us."

"I'll stay out here, thanks." It felt good to lie, and he needed any excuse to take the edge off. "Wouldn't want to end up being some weirdo's puppet. I'll stay out here and see if I can find a cute new doll for Elruin when she comes back. Don't expect a dragon, but I think one of those buffalo would look nice with a tent on its back, don't you?"

"Yeah." Lemia gave a dry chuckle. "Nice enough for a dragon to spot from miles away and eat while we're still on it."

"You bring up a good point. In fact, you bring up a lot of good points, most of them teeth." Scratch drifted out of their hiding place. "Well, you kids have fun, I'll see if I can't find something worthwhile out here."

"Just don't do something stupid and insane like sending an abomination into the city to stir things up and give Elruin a chance to show off, or I will kill you with my bare hands." Cali glared at the ghost, willing him to understand that she could and would make good on the threat if she had to.

"Don't worry, I ain't some amateur. That stunt only works if you're already in a position of trust and you want to strengthen it." Scratch faded from sight, then began to snake through the ethereal pathways toward the city. By the time the others arrived, he'd already know where the mystery necromancer was hiding, how he operated, and every secret worth knowing.

Then he'd do as he always did.

=====

I'm genuinely shocked by the number of readers who forgot the prior conversations this story has presented about the nature of the undead and how it applies to the Midara setting (like how their very existence is in and of itself a violation of the natural and magical order). Eh, I guess while there's been a pretty big look at the topic in both Ch1 and Ch2, Scratch wasn't saying much if anything... so here's a look at it from the inside...

 

Suggested Listening

"The necromancer's been here." Elruin drew her conclusion before they got in shouting range of the small Seyid town on the outskirts of Engeval's empire. Her bleak sight could spot the torn tapestry of life energy that came from the most blatant use of necromancy in combat, so long as the usage was fresh. All higher power spellcasting left such marks, but each was distinct and Elruin was especially sensitive to necromantic power.

Lemia asked the obvious question. "The necromancer, or any necromancer of sufficient strength?"

"The necromancer." The subtle but lingering hum of undeath clung to the area, singing of old death and impending sickness. "The whole city is covered in a small amount of taint."

"Sounds expensive." Ketak marched ahead, playing the role of the soldier she'd have to convince those of Seyid she was. "He can't ha'e done 'at wi'out a reason, got any ideas what he's playing at?"

"Terror tactics." Calenda considered what she would use such a field for, from the perspective of the undead. "First, if it's light, they gotta have exorcists who could cleanse it, but they're not. Were they killed? Does an attempted cleansing set off more surprise bombs? Second, even light taint should make it all but impossible to find actual undead via magic. Third, people have got to know it's there, and I can only imagine the effect that's having on the population."

Before they made it to city proper, the terrain began to shift around them. Spears of rigid purple and blue stone sprung from the ground, surrounding and trapping them behind beautiful but jagged walls. Elruin's eyes widened, because the stone was alive, a construct of living bone that looked like rock. She was a moment from hitting the wall with all her power, fearing they were the teeth of some strange underground dragon.

"State your business, outsiders!" Neither Elruin nor Lemia recognized the words, but Calenda and Ketak recognized the language of the Silvanesti.

"How much Sylvanesti do you know?" Cali put a hand over Elruin's mouth, to prevent the child from mentioning anything about the strangeness of the magical trap they were in, and thus accidentally revealing the wrong secret. "Because I only know enough to tell them I'm a priestess and basic ranks." Once, that was all she needed, but without a sigil of her Scout status, she had no authority to leverage.

"My apologies! We am Dwarf. Know little Silv." Ketak tried her best, which she had to admit was terrible, but it was better than Cali could do.

"Noble Stone-Sister, what brings you to this city of Klent?" Another voice, this one speaking silmid better than most in Sonhome could. She also managed to identify the sex of Ketak, which wasn't easy even amongst the silmid.

"My pardon, noble Leaf-Sister." Ketak slipped into the comfort of talking to one of her own in their native language, rather than the human tongue which had many sounds their mouths weren't equipped to make. "We visit in search of the maker of abominations."

"To what end?"

"That we might kill it, on request from the humans of Engeval." The year with Scratch aiding her in the slaughter of every goblin near Sonhome was the greatest compensation she could ever have asked for. Never before had she seen such beautiful slaughter. "Abominations have attacked as deep as Arila and Engewal, with here being the possible source. We see now the speculation was true."

"Then you have taken arms as a mercenary?"

"Never!" Ketak shouted, for it was amongst the greatest shame to be a killer for money, worse than any but traitors and those who exploit children. "I follow the Oath of the Flame, and work tirelessly to that end. However, it is human custom to pay those that kill in their name, and I see no reason not to gratefully accept all donations that go to the cause, even by those that believe it mandatory."

"Then we have much need of your sacred duties, Stone-Sister." If the silmid speaking had any doubts about Ketak's claims, she had no reason to voice them. If she had taken the Oath of the Flame, then it was a religious responsibility to allow her to act, within reason. If she was a mercenary from the human nobility, then it was still at the command of a ruling authority.

"Leaf-Sister, do you mind if we speak the human tongue? My companions are less familiar with the first-furs than we are with them."

"Yes, o' course, I wouldn't want to make our guests 'eel ignored." The silmid changed her tone, and slower speech for less comfortable syllables. "Yet I 'ear the city might not welcome your aid."

"We expected as much." Ketak switched to speaking human as well. "Howe'er, 'e longer 'ose in charge delay us, 'e more die to 'e necromancer's strange magics, including what 'e Arilans are calling bone runes. We bring a scholar to aid in teaching you 'eir defenses against such magics."

The walls of colorful jagged stone shifted and sank into the soil, where it returned to appearing no more than part of the environs even to Elruin's sight, while several soldiers waited for them outside. Two looked much like Lemia; people of dark brown skin, hair and eyes, though both were male. Another, the only woman, had the same soft blue tones of the boy whose zombie she had been forced to dispose of that morning, and one was a silmid of red-orange fur, with a white muzzle.

The silmid came forward, with the blue colored woman right behind her. "My apologies, but we must test you be'ore we allow you into 'e city. Rys will use a simple spell, it won't harm you, but it will re'eal i' you're one o' 'e necromancer's pawns."

The woman, Rys, held up a large, bright pink sarite crystal. With a flash of energy, the group felt a tingle of energy that almost tickled, save for Cali who thanked her lucky stars that her body no longer had reflexes to scream or flinch away from pain. She remained standing, only because it was no different than collapsing in her current state of unlife.

Meanwhile, three very angry squirrels hissed at the spell. "Shh, shh, it's fine." Elruin did her best to calm them down by petting them and holding her hands out as if to feed them, though she couldn't under the current circumstances.

Lemia stepped forward, choosing to be confrontational while her friends recovered from the experience. "You lied to us."

"No, 'e spell is harmless."

"For normal people, sure, but if any of us had runebones, that spell would have set them off." Lemia considered the residue of the magic, and how it might respond once it made contact with bloodmold. "Then it... saps taint in order to manipulate blood by separating salt from water? I guess that's one way to cure bloodmold. I bet it does a lot of damage to the undead, too. But it's still a killing spell."

The silmid closed her eyes, for them a sign of shame. "It is our best line o' protection. Li'es lost are a tragedy, but a greater tragedy is 'e li'es lost i' 'ey are allowed to continue on at 'e abomination's whims. Do you ha'e a better way?"

Now it was Lemia's turn to feel apologetic. "Uh, we're still working on it."

"Enou' o' 'at." Ketak stepped in. "Recriminations won't help anyone. We are here to 'ix 'e problem 'e best way, by bringing justice to 'e abomination and guarantee 'is ne'er happens again. Sooner we get started, 'e fewer ha'e to die."

"You're right." Lemia bowed in apology to the silmid. "It has been a stressful trip, and I fear our job has only just begun. Can you please recommend a good inn for us to set up for the night?"

"Yes, 'e silver spire, it's straight 'ataway." She pointed toward the southeast.

It hurt Cali to walk, but she wasn't like normal undead, and understood how to push her body beyond what the typical abomination could. She'd dealt with far, far worse pain in her life. Besides, the soft taint in the atmosphere was able to restore her body as she moved. Soon, it only felt like she walking on two broken feet, rather than breaking every bone in her legs with each step.

Suggested Listening

"You know, I thought she was giving us the name of the inn." Lemia looked up at tower of silver colored stone. It was both majestic and natural, like it had been carved by water rather than the work of hands or even magic. "It's beautiful work, and the magic is so intricate, like it's being powered from within."

"Their buildings are alive," Elruin said. Now that they were further along, she'd gotten a look at the rigid buildings of the city. She wanted to help Cali, but she had to be good and hide her magic. She comforted herself by noting that Cali's presence was enough to soak up the fragments of taint, so she didn't have to cleanse it outright.

"It's called coral," Cali said. "It's a plant that grows in the ocean, and there's plenty of sylvanesti water mages in Seyid who use it to shape buildings similar to how the silmid shape trees. Still trying to figure out how at Rys woman controlled it using blood magic, if you've got any thoughts on that."

"It's not a plant." Now that Elruin was close to the inn and had time to look, she was certain of it. "It's an animal. Or a bunch of animals, like ants, but they make their hive out of their own exoskeleton. It's like living bone..."

They all stopped as they came to the same realization at the same time.

"Good thing I wasn't planning to sleep tonight, anyway," Lemia said.

=====

This scene would have been significantly different if Ketak wasn't part of the team. And there are plenty of paths where she won't be, with only a few where Seyid territories aren't explored at this point.

I really think that music transition is going to be amazing when done in the game as they realize just what an unscrupulous necromancer might be able to do with a city like this one.

That said... you now get to meet a third unique culture with its own ways of doing things. Because oceanic living has different problems which require different solutions, and then turns those solutions into weapons- like using a desalination spell on blood. It's a universal truth of humanity. If it exists, we will find a way to kill something with it.

 

Suggested Listening

Ketak eyed the shore as she approached the temple. Its colorful spires against the night sky was perhaps the most beautiful merger of nature and engineering she had ever witnessed outside of Liselm. That beauty loomed overhead, made threatening by the knowledge that this monument might become their tomb and indeed murderer.

Beside her, Xyka did her best to not upset the ebon squirrel that now sat upon her head. The silmid woman had seen stranger things than necromancy-seeking rodents in her life, but not often.

It sniffed the air in front of the temple, and required all of a heartbeat to decide it didn't like this strange new location, and without Elruin it jumped away and went straight into a nearby bush.

"What does that mean?" Xyka asked in the silmid language.

"She doesn't like the temple. I presume this is where you keep most of your healers?" As was true of Arila and Sonhome, the talented healing mages were locked away in the center of the city, close to the wealthy and far from the threat of violence.

"Yes." Xyka refused to look away from the glowing red eyes that stared at her in the darkness. As bizarre as thaumic breeding was, she never before encountered herbivores that looked at her the way predators looked at their prey. Weeks ago, she would have considered them the most unnerving creatures she had ever witnessed. Now she knew there were worse things in the night. "We lost several of our finest during the confusion of the first few days, and now the rest are cloistered away."

"May they be remembered." Ketak resisted the urge to call the survivors cowards. She didn't know their stories or the burdens they bore. "But please, I need to speak to them. This place appears to be in less danger than we originally feared, but we must convince them that there is no choice but to begin purging the necromancer's influence."

"If the necromancer's left this region alone, I'm afraid it might be difficult to convince them to act, but I believe I can convince them to hear your words." Any excuse to get away from the squirrels which would remain forever in her nightmares was a welcome one. "I pray you're prepared.

Ketak took a slow breath, and considered her approach. Were she too forceful, the clergy might take offense and reject her, but if she didn't make clear how dangerous the situation was, she might be condemning what remained of the city's holy orders to the most gruesome of possible deaths. If only Calenda could be here. She was the one who knew how priests, or for that matter humans, thought.

She had to hope things were going better with the others.

Suggested Listening

Calenda hesitated at the edge of the cemetery designed much the same as their own in Arila with a series of rune magic structures that were intended to block taint while doing more complex work. Such practices were a necessity of survival, not cultural preference.

It was also clear from the onset that the system was nonfunctional. The visible runes were cracked and split, no doubt victims of the same attack which had been used on Arila, followed by an inability to control the border and prevent other corpses from being turned into weapons. As such, the area was busy with mages working to cleanse the area with the wards down.

Two armed soldiers, both men, stepped forward with their spears pointed at Calenda. "State your purpose."

Cali bristled at the commands these men issued. Did they have no respect for social propriety? "I am a priestess of Ecros, here on the authority of Engewal to track the necromancer responsible for the attacks on this city and others across the empire."

The guards didn't relax or glance at one another. "You have no authority here, foreigner."

Cali once again found herself at odds with her unliving nature serving to keep her less emotional than she knew she should be. "I wasn't aware Seyid declared independence in the last two weeks."

"We should be so lucky," the one who hadn't been talking muttered.

"We may be part of the empire, but that does not mean we answer to you. Unless Enge Himself has ordained you the new queen, you and your lieges can both go back where you came from and stay there."

"At the expense of allowing innocent people, even perhaps your entire city, to die?" Not for the first time in her life, Cali considered taking their spears and planting them firmly in their sphincters. Like always, she restrained herself and soaked in disappointment.

"You may not have heard, but it's too late to save the ones in here."

"You may not have heard, but that's not an obstacle to a skilled abomination necromancer." Perhaps she could crack their skulls against the ground for a few minutes, nothing important would be damaged. Then she saw a black blur move past her vision and rush into the confines of the cemetery. "Mort! Return!"

The hellsquirrel ignored commands and shot right past the guards, leaving behind an aura of confusion and uncertainty which could manifest itself in any number of ways, but almost guaranteed they'd forget they saw him in the first place.

Shouts of surprise soon began within the cemetery as the various mages tried to deal with the bizarre, agile animal that fed upon their necromancy.

"Merat ne!" One guard ran into the cemetery to figure out what was going on, while the other remained facing her, more agitated than ever.

Cali crossed her arms as she watched the man who wasn't a threat to her even when he had backup. "So, instead of accepting my help, you'd rather wait out here while horrible monsters might be murdering the people you're supposed to be here to protect?"

He hesitated, listening to the screams of panic and fear. One particularly shrill shriek made his mind up for him. "If you cause any trouble at all, I will make certain you hang to death!" He turned and ran into the cemetery as well.

Calenda gave him a respectable head start before she ran past him like he was standing still, acting the part of a warrior expecting to find a fight. To her surprise, she did find a fight. Two dessicated corpses had started to move, and as they did Cali felt the tug of their energies. They were consuming absurd amounts of necromantic energy from the air, more than a human body should be able to withstand.

Cali struck hard and fast, landing a bone-shattering flying kick into the closer of the two zombies. An act which the zombie didn't seem to so much as notice. She stepped back, uncertain of herself. "How?" She could have accepted that it wasn't destroyed, even that it remained standing, but to take a blow such as that without so much as budging an inch, was unbelievable.

It seemed she wasn't the only one unable to understand, as the local exorcists unleashed spell after spell, any one of which would have left Calenda crippled if not destroyed, upon the undead to no effect. While in the midst of the necromantic firestorm, a fuzzy rodent basked in the energies and shielded Cali like the good boy that it was trained to be.

The zombies began to move, going straight for the necromancers while passing her by. Useful, knowing that they didn't seem to realize she was there, but dangerous if anyone began to wonder why she was ignored. She hoped the others were having a better night than she was.

Suggested Listening

Lemia kept close to the younger girl, doing her best to appear to be her mother or older sister. "Don't try so hard to hide, you don't want to attract attention as an easy victim any more than you do as an outsider."

Elruin wanted to ask how she could both look like she wasn't dangerous and look like she wasn't weak at the same time, but she lifted her head a little in the hopes that would be enough. It seemed like everyone had a different way of doing things, and not a single person ever showed her what they were.

"This is where the necromancer is taking his victims," Elruin said. The air all but screamed the song of undeath, a song muted, distorted, and echoed by the coral buildings. Magic warped much as canyon walls warped sound.

"I know." Lemia didn't need Elruin's absurd sensory abilities to draw the same conclusion; she only had to look at this part of the city.

The poor district in Klent was, in many ways, the opposite of the one in Arila. Instead of small shacks strewn about like debris after a storm, these impoverished people lived in massive and well-organized coral boxes, stacked atop one another like colorful bricks. In a city like Arila, people might have thought these large, sturdy buildings were a sign of wealth and power, but one look at the residents' faces would disabuse them of the notion.

People here were alert, watching one another and the strangers in their midst, asking the universal question of the slums: who are my allies, who are the threats, and who are the victims? Outsiders, by definition, could not be allies; anonymity made them both the quintessential victim and threat. Yet not a single local thug approached to cause them trouble or drive them out of 'their' territory, not a single member of the well-meaning community warned them away. These were a people who had given up, they were all victims of a far more dangerous power.

Elruin looked around, as alert to the mystical elements at play as she was oblivious to the human. "That way." She looked in the direction she was certain contained some fragment of undeath, but heeded Lemia's reminders not to point or show any obvious body language.

Lemia's heart jumped in her chest, wondering what to do. They were as protected as anyone could hope to be, but the idea of confronting a necromancer with the skill and brutality this one had shown brought her back to the frightened little girl she thought she'd outgrown long ago. "Perhaps we should go get the others, first?"

"No." Elruin's eyes somehow shined darker than the night's sky. "It's here. I can hear it, it's making another weapon."

"Three above." Lemia forced herself to breathe. "Lead the way."

Elruin set Decima down. "Hunt!" Then ran after, following her own path rather than relying upon the squirrel to lead her. As strong as the animals' instincts were, they were not as sharpened as Elruin's ability to trace magic. Decima was helping, however, by absorbing some of the ambient necromancy which allowed the abominations to hide in the city.

The streets became more narrow, as they pursued the source of growing necromantic power in the dark, changing from rigid right angles to a series of labyrinthine curves and dead ends that grew ever closer to resembling the oceanic environs which coral formed in nature. Even in the day, these streets would remain dark. Even without a monster, these streets would reek of blood and offal.

Then they saw it. Standing over six feet tall, it was a mass of bodies twisted together as if made of wet clay rather than living tissue. Sinew and tendons draped from countless that moved in spite of not being connected to anything.

At its feet, a man, a woman, and two young children sat smiling, naked save for the blood which coated them. All had serene smiles on their faces, while watching the man hold open his own thigh muscles as four rotting arms shoved a rune-marked femur into the bloody mess of his leg. Then, somehow, it cast a healing spell on the flesh, forcing it to stitch back together without sign of the original wound.

Lemia gagged, but didn't lose her stomach this time. "It's like..." she didn't complete the sentence. It was like Calenda, taint hidden even as they looked straight upon it, able to cast magic in spite of the fact that undead should not ever be able to cast magic.

The thing's six heads looked straight at them, each an echo of love. A concerned mother, a childhood confidante, a trusting younger sister, a doting father, a loving husband, a young son. "You are lonely." "Empty." "Pain. Suffering. Loss." "Come to me." "I will make you happy." "We can be together." "Forever." "Always." "Be part of me." "Let me be part of you."

The girls received fantasies tailored to their own psychology, but in the end they weren't that dissimilar from one another. Their mothers were affectionate, they knew their fathers, they beheld innocence unlike any in their real childhoods. They were offered a life of happiness, even if it was short and full of comforting lies.

=====

This is a horror sequence, and they split the party. Heh. Also, I kinda want a nightmare squirrel of my own. Y'know if they wouldn't drive me insane then feed upon my corpse.

Yeah, I know, same song, three times. That is a function of the situation in this story at this time. I think one of the best things about horror games is their ability to twist the expected, and this is me dipping into that pool a bit.

Besides, I don't know if it's physically possible to find a piece that better suits the atmosphere I'm building than this one.

 

Suggested Listening

Ketak stood at the shore of the temple, considering the sky while giving occasional check on the glowing red eyes which watched her. The joke was on the death-eating rodent, for her eyes were more than capable of seeing its sleek fur in the darkness. Dwarven vision may have been inferior to humans in the daylight, but come darkness and they lost none of their acuity while humans were all but blind.

By the time Xyka came out, the moon had risen then vanished behind the clouds that promised rain on the morrow. Her eyes glowed white with electrical energy as she recited all the profanities of the four languages she knew under her breath as a private litany.

Ketak knew the answer, but needed confirmation. "The cowards refuse to act, right?"

"Like root worms!" Xyka shouted, confident nobody else would understand silmid or the significance of the insult. Root worms were both a preferred snack to silmid and nasty parasites which would often kill the trees by boring into the roots and bark. Their claim to fame compared to most grubs was an unparalleled ability to hide and flee from predators. To be compared to one was a high insult.

Ketak growled and considered going up to the temple doors and carving through them. The temple was defended, true, but she could do a great deal of damage, perhaps enough to convince them that there was no safety in hiding.

She chose not to, for she had better sabotage in mind. "Nona! Come!" She extracted the small bead containing infused necromantic power from her pocket. It was too weak to be useful in and of itself, but these squirrel-things favored them as treats.

Nona's tail twitched, then she bounded out into the open in spite of the unpleasant smell of the temples.

Xyka took a step back and looked at both the squirrel and the concentrated necromantic fragment. "What are you planning to do?"

"Don't worry, it won't hurt anyone." Ketak left out 'this time' from the statement. "Nona, glow!"

The fuzzy ball of insanity took a moment to consider her situation. On one hand, this strange person was giving her orders rather than the pack-leader. On the other, there was a treat waiting, and she liked treats. As with most things in a squirrel's life, her stomach made the decision for her. Her red eyes turned black as she generated a pulse of necromantic power. A beacon of fear and death energy that would be felt by any nearby mages, and disrupt other magic.

"Good girl." Ketak held out the treat while doing her best to ignore the cloying power of death radiating from the animal.

Nona stopped her performance, because while she'd obey for treats, it would be for no longer than she had to.

"There, they'll notice that in the morning, then maybe they'll reconsider." Her mission a failure before it began, Ketak began to walk away from the temple.

Xyka looked back at the residue left behind by the freakish rodent. It wasn't like abomination magic, but it was a thing of palpable harm that would require a great deal of work to cleanse from the temple. It could be days before it was safe to reopen the temples to prayer. "I should be arresting you right now."

"On behalf of those cowards? Hmph. We both know our loyalties are to our people and what is best for them. Perhaps a few days without the distraction of collecting donations will remind the human religious leaders of their own oaths."

Invoking the silmid contempt for human greed was a cheap ploy, but an effective one. "Let us hope so, stone-sister."

"My companions won't be done for a while." Now that they were further from the temples, Ketak deigned to stop and consider her next move. "I don't suppose there are any good places for drinks around here?"

"Good for proper alcohol, or good for information and networking with other mercenaries looking to kill a necromancer for profit? We have both, but they're not the same place."

"Of course not," Ketak muttered. "Why would anything be that convenient?"

Suggested Listening

Calenda observed the zombies for a moment. Fueled by the ambient necromantic energies, they could survive any physical attack Calenda could dish out, and there wasn't many options which a botanical mage could use against the undead. She went for the one she had, tracking the ground for a suitable chunk of stone, and forcing it to rise from the ground.

Then the fresh zombies began to act, guided by a series of thoughts and emotions not their own. The nearest necromancer screamed for a total of half a second before his larynx was crushed by a zombie, followed not long after by the other three beginning to cast a series of spells meant to paralyze and cleanse the undead.

Cali ripped the stone up from the ground, putting all her strength into lifting the rock that was twice as heavy as she was. Holding it not unlike one might cradle a baby, she picked up a running start while using her magic to reinforce and strengthen the ground so that she didn't sink down to her knees in the soil.

At the last moment, she brought the stone up and then slammed it right down on the back of her target's head. A crack resounded as both stone and skull were tested against one another. A conflict that neither could win. The stone cracked through, leaving two large chunks on the ground next to the zombie and a spattering of small stones and brain matter.

"They can be overwhelmed!" Her shout of encouragement was more meant for herself than her temporary allies, for even as she said it she came to realize it was wrong.

It spite of its head being burst open like a rotting cantaloupe, it showed no sign of being slowed. Meanwhile, the mages redoubled their efforts to slow the monsters by any means necessary.

It was only thanks to Mort that Cali remained standing in spite of the exorcism, but the zombies had power to spare. It seemed to her that they were benefiting from something not unlike Elruin's ability to strengthen and shield her undead against other magic. Calenda took a step back, away from the certain failure that was about to occur.

She closed her eyes and issued a prayer to Ecros. "It is the warrior's burden than some must die in the name of victory. They are the mothers and fathers, who throw themselves into the predator's jaws so that their children live on. In those children, they will be remembered forever." She then opened her eyes to watch these poor brave men die at the hands of the dead. She would see to it their last moments meant something.

One, less brave than the others, broke ranks and retreated for the gate. An act which earned him special attention from the still whole zombie, which chased him down far faster than a middle-aged scholarly mage could hope to outrun.

Cali noted that the zombies acted in concert; its cohort didn't so much as glance at the fleeing exorcist. Instead, it waited for the others to turn their attention away for a moment before it struck from behind and ripped the throat out of the stronger of the remaining mage. Cali added to her mental library that they used advanced tactics as well. Stronger threats were targeted before they went for the weak. Then the undamaged zombie caught the final victim and crushed his skull in an imitation of what Cali had done.

Now that their only company was the dead dead, the pair still seemed disinterested in Calenda. Mort, on the other hand, was still alive, and the zombies began to chase after the squirrel which, being a squirrel, ran straight up a nearby building to the safety of the roof. The zombies pursued, then split up to try to deny their prey an escape route.

All of this was important tactical knowledge that could be used in future battles, paid for in blood and screams.

Now, as the undamaged zombie began to use its fingers to claw its way up the wall, it was time for Calenda to act. She gripped the climber's shoulders and dipped into her vampiric sarite shard. Black lines began to creep across her hands and arms as what remained of her blood converted to an inky ichor made of raw necromantic energies.

Used against people, it was a means to sap magic to replace her own dwindling supply. Used by people against the undead, it was a particularly horrific suicide. Used in this situation, it provided Cali with an almost ceaseless pool of power to draw upon.

Using the zombie's power against itself, Calenda twisted and squeezed its neck, breaking the spine as she slammed the thing into the ground like a rag doll. It grabbed at her, but it had half the power it did moments ago, while she had the other half and her own magic on top of it. She slammed it into the ground again and was rewarded with the sickening crunch of a jawbone collapsing inward. The next shattered the skull.

Then she gripped its arm and ripped it from the socket, slammed her knee into the spine to break that as well, then kicked backward into the chest of the oncoming zombie behind her. Despite using far less force than she had expended against the first, the second was propelled back with its chest caved inward. Not enough to destroy it, but the half-dismembered zombie still moved as well.

There was a solution to this problem, though not one she was eager to enact. She grabbed the zombie's leg, shoved her foot into its spine hard enough to snap its bones like dried twigs, and separated another limb.

The next few minutes were disgusting work at best, but it was easier with her newfound strength than it ever could have been before.

She looked at her hand, at the black veins and arteries that now traced themselves across her body. She had no doubt in her mind that her face was as covered as the rest of her. Once again, part of her humanity died, and she became stronger for it.

She took a running start and jumped over the wall of the crematorium, an act which was easier now by far than it had been but a few minutes ago. She pulled up her hood and hoped that and the darkness would hide her features enough.

No longer could she afford to be seen by normal people unless there was something Elruin could do to return her to normal.

Suggested Listening

The composite horror fed its illusions to the pair, and experienced what might have been shock when Elruin began to sing. Whether the credit belonged to their protective sarite, their natural strength, or the ad-hoc abattoir disrupting the effect, was a question for later. What mattered now was the illusion had little more impact than a pleasant daydream.

It meant nothing. To Elruin, at any rate. She lifted her violin, gave herself to the power of requiem, and swam in the complex magical tapestry that was this, the most advanced necromantic construct she had ever witnessed. It was a complete being, a true soul, built from the ground up. It was not a native undead like Scratch, nor an insulated soul in an undead body like Calenda, but something which shared properties of both and a great deal more. As if it was a soul born undead.

Lemia's reaction was more appropriate for the manipulation and violation of memories, fantasies, and emotions on a fundamental level. She fumbled for her ammunition through tear-blinded eyes, all other emotions abandoned in favor of rage and disgust. Aim enhancing magic coupled with the size of the monster deserved more credit than Lemia's aim, but the thing blossomed into alchemical flame.

It stood watching its own flesh burn away as Elruin pinned its necromantic muscles with her own superior control of the element.

They could not, however, control its psychic death-cries. Unable to speak words, it pleaded with them using idea in pure form. Flashes of a thousand possible lives rang out across the area, granting pasts that never were and promising futures which could never be.

It offered a world of unparalleled, impossible happiness. The happiness it yearned for but could never have, the happiness it brought to others. The only thing it wanted was to bring joy into this bleak, merciless world. It pleaded for the life it did not possess. It did not, could not, understand why they sought its death. It felt, it thought, and that made it all the more dangerous.

The inhabitants of this slum came rushing in, unaware of why or what they fought for, but they would fight nonetheless. Rocks began to bounce off of Elruin, thrown by the very people they were here to save. She ignored them, she had to, for if she stopped playing, then their target would escape.

"Elruin!" Lemia was stopped from helping when three people grabbed onto her, pinning her arms. One of them was the blood-covered man who had not long ago stitched himself back together.

Elruin returned to her music, this time to cover the area in darkness to hide her from the swarm. An act which was proved futile, for these people were not seeing her with their eyes, they were not seeing her at all. They were seeing the illusion fed into their minds by the undead creature. She looked at the faces of people a few feet from her, smiling at her as if she was their long lost daughter.

Nobody had ever smiled at her in such a way before in her life.

If she lost control of the monster, it would kill them all, so she grew more desperate for a means to fight back. Its mind alteration magic was stronger than her own, and to use raw negation risked granting the monster more strength, so she blended her ice magic into the song. People fell as they neared her, their bodies robbed of strength and warmth.

A flash of black lightning erupted from Lemia's own armor. Elruin's armor wasn't the only tool she'd built, and her own armor came with a cheap imitation of Elruin's defensive power of choice. People screamed in agony, but the smiles never left their faces as they continued to cling to the very thing which was stripping their life away.

It stared at them from sockets of eyes melted by heat, uncomprehending of why they tried to hurt it. It wanted them to feel joy, but they wanted it to suffer. So it pushed harder, pressed their minds and lifted the concept of sarite from their minds. Evil, hateful stones which stole happiness from those which carried them. The solution, then, was to take the stones from these poor people so they could be happy.

So it showed its beloved family the secret of the evil sarite, so that they could save these unfortunates, and its family moved as an army to protect their one true source of happiness.

Elruin changed her song again, attacking the illusions the creature had created. Every stroke of her violin was a blade slicing the strings which bound their minds. It was a terrible strategy, one which required breaking them free one at a time while they swarmed in by the dozens. They would run out of space to move long before the slums ran out of people the monster could throw at them.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" Lemia continued to struggle to free herself from the wounded and dead. She launched one more projectile toward the monster, this one infused with pure creation energy.

The bomb burst into a storm of energy that dimmed all the remaining necromancy in the area. An angry squirrel screeched and retreated for cover in a pile of garbage, while people gasped and screamed when their bodies were wracked with energy every bit as destructive as negation, but one which stripped them of the happy lie they had been given.

Insulated as she was by her armor, Elruin didn't feel the pain of the bomb, but it did cost her the use of requiem long enough that the monster could retreat into the darkened alleyway, leaving misery and death behind as was the whole purpose behind its creation.

It was now on them to deal with the aftermath.

=====

Here's hoping the giant chapter is apology enough for not getting one up in the last few days. This is a big section with a crapton of moving parts, requires more planning than most.

This thing's going to be a fun boss fight in the game. Grapple strategies are going to be a significant threat (at least against squishy mages like Elruin and Lemia), especially when ganged up on (Anyone familiar with Dwarf Fortress? Basically, a cleaned up version of that combat system). Disarming, also a major problem. And in this fight there'll be waves of mind controlled victims coming in to make things all the more frustrating. Especially those angling for a 'good' playthrough which tries to save as many innocent lives as possible. Evil playthrough... a bit underwhelming, really.

Cali's fight would have gone a lot easier (re: survivors other than herself) if someone thought to equip her with an item that can cast healing spells. C'mon, this is a fantasy RPG... if there isn't at least one boss that dies to healing items, what's even the point of making the game? Bonus points if one of the characters dies to curative items. Right, Cali?

On the other hand, this just gave Cali a permanent stat boost. That's a plus, right? She'd get it anyway, it's almost impossible NOT to get the augmented undead powerup during this point of the story one way or another. If not to proper party members (getting here without any dead allies can be done), then to Elruin's dollies. To get through this section without any undead at all requires deliberate player choice.

In any case, you know the end game is approaching when characters start getting "upgraded forms". Elruin has her Armor of Death mode, and now Cali is a Super Zombie.

 

NOTICE:

From now on, there is no longer votes guiding this story. Doing the behind-the-scenes mechanics was always a resource sink, adding about 2-3 hours to the workload of the story every update. I was fine with that... but only when I could actually get people to participate. Which has always been difficult, and only getting worse with time. Now hopefully I'll have more time actually writing and more motivation to do so without struggling to get people to participate.

I am also ending the Requiem project at the end of Book 3, and not writing Book 4, because of this. I'll be moving directly to Midara: Paradox upon the completion of Requiem's third book (aka- this one). Because Requiem just plain was not designed to be a novel, because Open-World RPGs by their very nature don't work well with linear storytelling, and I don't want it to be me guiding the story down my own personal railroad.

Paradox, however, is very much designed to be a linear RPG. I can novelize it on my own without any difficulty. It also has a princess, some lesbians, an enslaved demon, and an Undead Dragon God... so that'll be fun...

Upon the completion of Paradox, I will then consider attempting to revisit the Requiem project (hopefully with a larger fanbase that can sustain the necessary voter base- and a rule that Elruin can't follow the same core path in the second 'Let's Play'). If I don't have the necessary base by then, I'll just move on to other Midara titles.

Okay, now let's get to the actual story.

=====

Suggested Listening

The sick-sweet stench of tainted necromancy hung in the aether like the stink of cheap bordello perfume and the odors it failed to hide. It was choking, oppressive, magic which clung to all surfaces of the physical and spiritual world. "Got hand it to you, you old hag, you sure know how to set a scene."

"Why, Scratch, I do believe that is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me." Aether-space twisted as it was violated into a form it was never meant to be by forces that did not belong in this universe. An ancient woman, far older than even her bent and gnarled figure suggested, stepped without moving into a place where flesh was never meant to exist. "But I'm afraid Kalla deserves all of the credit. She has quite the formidable mind."

"Coming in person?" Scratch continued drifting, watching the mortal side of the metaphysical coin. Besides, there was no point in pretending he needed to look in order to see with the likes of her, they'd known one another far too long. "That isn't like you."

"Ah, but why wouldn't an old woman want to visit her dear friends as she nears the end of her long life?"

"Hmph, old friend she says. I've spent my entire afterlife with the sole purpose of seeing you join me in death." He allowed himself a cold, cruel chuckle. "But now that I think about it, perhaps I am the closest thing you've got to true friendship. But for the sake of 'friendship', what do you mean the end of your life? You never believed any of the others could kill you, and I know you don't think this one can."

"Not a ghost of a chance." Uewatsu cackled at her pun. "Kiara fought death itself, and it was death who died at her hand. I am every bit my ancestor's equal, well outside the power of some silly farmgirl playing with dolls. But what I know doesn't interest me so much as what you believe. You think she'll break the cycle, don't you?"

"It's a cycle that needs broken. You should never have been."

"Ah, old friend, I see you still avoid the subject when someone touches a nerve." Uewatsu laughed some more. "I'm not like all those children you've manipulated to their deaths and beyond. Your tricks don't work on me."

"I don't know." Scratch gave up on the possibility of getting away without answering. That didn't mean he had to tell Uewatsu more than the absolute minimum. "But I think she has a better chance than anyone has had in a long time. She's accomplished quite a bit for someone so young."

"The creation of that half-undead freak of hers, you mean."

"You tip your hand, crone." Scratch faked confidence, not because he thought it would fool her, but because it was expected of him. They all had their roles to play in this charade of a universe. "You've been watching quite close if you recognized Calenda for what it is. Which means Elruin's surprised you, too."

"Oh, it's not so difficult to spot if you know how to look." Uewatsu's grin exposed gums without teeth. "And while her trick is new to you, It's not so special. I bet most of them could accomplish it if they thought to try and had a suitable volunteer. Maybe I should kill off her other allies, see if she's close enough to do the same for the others."

"You wouldn't dare. Now leave Elruin alone until she brings the fight to you."

"Relax, old friend, I know the rules to this farce." Uewatsu never stopped smiling. "My puppets play with empires, your puppet plays with dolls. So has it been for a thousand years, so shall it be for another thousand. But I sense that Adageyudi will involve herself soon. You know how she feels about rules."

Scratch faded into the background for a moment as he lost concentration. Adageyudi was worse than Uewatsu, if only because Uewatsu could be trusted to pretend she had a scrap of sanity remaining. The others were far less reliable. "It... has been quite some time since Ada made an appearance." He didn't dare ask Uewatsu more information on the topic, for fear of provoking the half-crazed hag into doing something everyone else would regret. "Have a message you want to relay to your counterpart?"

Uewatsu flexed her magic, twisting reality so that she could untwist it and return herself to the physical world. "Let her know that if I see her, I will kill her myself."

"I'm surprised at myself for expecting anything else." Now alone, Scratch returned to observing the world of the living as it brushed against the world of the dead.

Suggested Listening

Elruin watched the thing retreat, then looked at the death which surrounded her. She counted thirty-seven victims of this battle, but only nine survivors. Most of them were killed by her power, because she had no other way to fight off the swarm of people while trying to save the city from the abomination.

Lemia sat in a corner staring out at the carnage, cheeks soaked in tears. "I'm sorry," she muttered to herself over and over, a frantic prayer from the closest thing their world could have to an atheist. "I'm so sorry."

Elruin drew up her violin, playing a song to the dead, to death itself. She found the flickers of taint and dismantled them note by dissonant note, until she hoped she had cleansed the alleyway of the risk of undeath. This thing, whatever it was, shared Scratch's ability to cloak its taint. As she played, she dove deeper into the complexities of the necromancy involved. It was miasma magic, of that she was certain, but it went even deeper still into forms and structure she had not so much as considered before.

What caught her by surprise was the discovery of the song beneath the other songs, whispered echoes of the void portal she had used as a weapon against Claron over a year prior. Scratch called the undead wounds upon the universe, and this more than any other thing confirmed that belief. While she still knew nothing about how the two were related, there was no longer a doubt in her mind that they were related.

With little left she could accomplish in that regard, she turned her attention to the dead which littered this cramped and dark alleyway. She slowed her singing and relied upon her bleak sight to reveal what it could. As her song faded, the sobbing and vocalizations from the victims took its place.

It was clear from first glance that there were those who could recover on their own, and those who were beyond saving by any means, not a single emergency case to worry about. How they would deal with explaining the bodies was a question for another time.

A woman and two children who were still in real danger took precedence. "They have runebones."

"How do you know?" Lemia's question was guided by reflex. All parts of her higher reasoning was occupied by the innocent lives who had died by her magic. She imagined their life energy clinging to her, bolstering her strength the way all those monsters she killed had. She choked down the urge to vomit.

"I know what to look for, now that I saw the monster."

Lemia forced herself to stand. "W-what do we do, now?" She worked her magic into a sphere of light, then a moment later willed said light from existence. She was happier when the bodies were part of her imagination and assumptions, rather than seeing the dead around her.

Elruin looked over at Lemia, then generated a light sphere of her own. It wasn't the simplest of fundamental spells, but it was well within her skill range, as long as she didn't need to perform any combat magic at the same time. Now that people could see, the crying began anew. These were their friends, family, and neighbors laying amongst the dead. Some fled the moment they could see an escape route, while others stayed because they feared the thing in the dark which this terrifying girl seemed to have the power to drive it off.

"You have runebones in you." Elruin approached the three people, while the woman did her best to hide her children behind her. It was a touching gesture of a life that Elruin had never experienced.

"R-runebones?" This dark-toned woman glanced around at the others, uncertain of what to do. It was difficult enough for her to remember what had happened not long ago.

"I don't know what your people call it, but it's how the necromancer has been attacking the city." Lemia still couldn't take her eyes of the corpses. It seemed insane to her that she could still speak, let alone answer questions. The last two years of explaining magic to Elruin must have ingrained the behavior into her.

The children cried and pulled themselves closer to their mother, who struggled to hold herself together for her children. "Don't tell them!" She looked around at the others, begging all of them for silence. "They'll... do you know what that spell does?"

"Yes, it agitates the necromantic runes, and sets off a chain reaction-"

"Ell, she didn't mean the particulars." Lemia cut in, reminded of the other reason it was always her doing the explanation. "We know that it kills, and it can't be a pleasant way to go, but it can't be worse than what happens if the runes activate in a normal situation. That's what she means."

"Oh." Elruin thought about it for a moment, while observing the runes. "I can stop that."

"You... you can break the curse?" It was more than she had dared hope, that these young people could remove the curse, but they were the ones who found the monster and drove it away.

"Not remove, but I can prevent it from activating as long as I remain nearby." In that regard, it was much the same as what she did with Cali, but much simpler and less complex, yet also less stable. "Maybe with time, we could find a way to stop it."

"But... but, aren't you hunting that monster?" She clutched her children tighter. "We can't follow you."

Lemia shuddered, still watching the corpses. Perhaps she could make some step toward atonement by helping this family? "We could set something up, so that you'll be safe even when she's not nearby. It won't be much, but it's the best anyone can do right now. We... have to go back to the inn, anyway. We need Cali and Ketak if we want to destroy that... thing..."

The poor woman's smile was forced, but genuine. "If- if you can save my daughters, then I'll do anything."

"We should go now," Elruin said. "Before anyone finds you." She began walking away, stepping over bodies as was needed.

As they made their retreat from that place of gore and terrible memories, Lemia searched for some way to apologize for her failure. There were no words she could find that didn't sound like they'd make things worse, but still she tried. "I'm... I am so sorry we couldn't save your husband."

"I never saw that man before in my life." She looked back at the bodies, one being that of her not-husband, then turned her attention to the backs of her daughters' heads. "Their father died long ago, but that... thing..." she trailed off, unable to finish her train of thought.

They walked for several minutes before she found what she wanted to say. "I don't know how much was its lies, but he seemed like a good man."

=====

Scratch is fun. Uewatsu is fun. Adageyudi will also be fun when she shows up.

And the plaguebearer is one of the most fucked up things I have ever written.

 

Suggested Listening

Calenda arrived home long before the others, and so spent an inordinate amount of time hiding in a nearby alleyway, petting the ebony furball. "If I'd known you were so soft, I'd have done this sooner. I think I was trying to distance myself from this carnival of death that's replaced my life, and you were an easy representative of it. Sorry."

Mort showed no indication that he comprehended her words, but he was the only ear she could speak to in this moment of confusion. For his part, he appreciated the necromancy-laded scratches that were almost as good as his owner's.

"I was trying to pretend away what I am." Cali looked at her hands. "No chance I'll be able to do that, again." Even after burning a great deal of power sprinting half the distance of the city, she still had enough power in her that her veins and fingernails matched the color of the squirrel she was scratching. There was so much of it in the atmosphere that she couldn't expend enough of it.

"Think if I hit myself enough times, I'll be able to drain off all the excess energy?" Cali looked into the glowing red eyes in the darkness. "Stupid question. If it was that easy, someone else would have fixed it before we got here."

Cali felt the field of necromancy shifted in response to Elruin's presence well before seeing her. The experience was nothing new to her, but she had never before been able to do it at such a range. She spotted Elruin's guests in tow while looking for an angle to approach without being seen by onlookers.

Mort hopped off her lap moments later, and scaled his way down the building, leaving no secrets to who his favorite was.

Cali tried to sigh, but she'd forgotten to breathe beforehand. Instead she increased the intensity of the magic which flowed through her veins in place of blood, a series of pulses like that of a heartbeat. Elruin looked straight toward her, confirming that the girl's range of detection was at least as good as her own improved abilities.

Elruin stopped to talk to Lemia for a moment, buying enough time for Mort to reach her. Lemia went on with the woman and children, while Elruin waited until they were out of sight to start approaching Cali's location.

Cali hopped down into the dark streets, and took a deep breath before stepping into enough light to allow Elruin to see what she'd become. "Awful brave of you to walk into a dark alley alone like this, what if I was the necromancer?"

"I knew it was you." Elruin stood observing all the changes in Calenda's pattern, then decided that her sister needed a hug. For a brief moment before she could adapt, Cali's new power numbed her skin. "Your song's changed, but it's not different. Like the same melody using different instruments. Besides, we saw the monster and you're nothing like it."

"You found the monster?" Cali wouldn't consciously realize it for some time, but knowing she wasn't like them made her feel far better. She returned Elruin's hug, while remaining conscious that her strength was far greater now than it had been. "Where? What happened?"

"After we went to the poor side of town, I sensed..."

By the time Elruin finished, Lemia was coming back outside. "They're inside, now what was s... four below!" Lemia's hands went to her mouth. "Cali? What happened to you?"

"I made a desperate choice, and these are the consequences." Calenda drew back the cloak she wore to reveal that the alterations across her face and neck. "It's not all bad, I have to be at least twice as strong as I was before, but do you think you can redo my disguise?"

Lemia moved close, hesitated, then touched Calenda's skin. "I... maybe. Right now part of me wants to take some of your skin for study. Your body is almost like it was made from necroleather." Even as she spoke, the dyes spread across her skin, this time far thicker than they had been before.

"I have enough enemies trying to take chunks out of me, don't you start, too." Cali forced a smile. "Besides, there were two zombies just like me, but without the intelligence, you can carve one of them up. They're tough, but stupid and not indestructible. We'll see if Elruin can't take control over one to study later."

"This necromancer's abilities are unbelievable, most would call them impossible." Lemia glanced over at Elruin, knowing full well the girl had similar capabilities. "We saw a spellcaster undead. It wasn't rune magic, but a true undead mage. And now we learn the necromancer can make necrotempered zombies. Tell me the truth, do we stand a chance in hell of winning?"

"Yes!" Elruin crossed her arms, trying her best to convey seriousness. "It has some clever tricks, but now that I've seen them I can do it, too. This is nowhere near as powerful as Claron, and we killed him! He's only scary because he keeps running and hiding from us. All we need to do is catch him and we can beat him."

"Too bad dark purple skin is almost unheard of, it's the only skin color that'd hide your new... uh... look." Lemia changed the subject away from the necromancer, knowing full well that Elruin's confidence was based on any number of flawed assumptions, not the least of which was her belief that she, who was having trouble on basic potion magic, was a match for a mage whose technique was superior to that of many achrmages. "We should go inside, maybe I'll be able to cobble together something more effective with my full kit."

"What about your guests?" Calenda, too, allowed Elruin to keep her illusions that this fight could be so easily won. What they encountered thus seemed closer to a probing strike to harass and test the enemy for weaknesses, rather than a proper engagement, or so her instincts were screaming to her. If this was the necromancer's idea of a harassment campaign, then open war would be a slaughter.

"Don't worry, they're already asleep," Lemia said. "I made them take a poppy tincture and sent them to bed. It's potent stuff, the building could catch fire and they'd sleep through it. With any luck, it'll help them forget what happened tonight." She doubted it, but considering the dreamlike nature of the illusions, there was a chance. After tonight she felt the need to embrace what little hope she could find. The alternative was to collapse into despair.

Several minutes later, the three of them were sitting on the floor while Lemia did her work on Cali's disguise. "Alright, I think that'll hold. I had to include sarite powder to maintain the charge and keep the necromantic energies from decomposing the dyes. Mages will notice if they look, but you can play it off as a form of camouflage and ward against magic. They might ask why you don't just use magical armor, but this is a lot cheaper than armor and is keyed against necromancy, so it makes sense in current context."

Calenda considered it for a moment. "I'll claim it's a religious practice."

"Huh, you didn't strike me as the heretical type."

"Ecross teaches that one must adapt and grow, to change who we are into something better in order to overcome the challenges in our lives. This is adaptation, and thus I honor the teachings." Calenda closed her eyes, longing for the time when those words brought her comfort and strength. "Unorthodox though it might be. Now that I'm taken care of, how do you plan to help those poor people in our bedroom."

"I can protect them, just like with you, but without the dying part." Elruin stopped to think about it for a moment. "Although if they did want to be like you, it would make it a lot easier. And now that I know how to make these necrotempered zombies, they could even-"

"How about if we call that a backup plan, and look for something that doesn't involve them following you around for the rest of your life?" As ambivalent as Calenda was on her current state of being, sure knew she had no desire to encourage Elruin to create more of her.

"I don't see the problem," a young girl's voice said from the ceiling. "Simple transposition is all you need."

Suggested Listening

Calenda rolled to her feet before the voice finished with 'don't'. "Who are you? Show yourself!"

Everyone else was slower to ready themselves, and still getting into a defensive position when a head with long purple hair stuck itself through a hole in the ceiling which hadn't been there a moment ago. "Hiyaaaa!" She screamed, then landed with a thud on the ground. "Oww! What did they make this floor out of, rock?"

Elruin watched and heard the girl's complex, alien, song, while pair of black squirrels climbed up her legs to seek shelter from the noisy intruder. "She's not a child, even though she looks like one."

"Cute game you're playing, but it's not fooling us." Calenda wished she had a decent weapon to threaten her with, but she hadn't had a chance to fix the guisarme and her basic throwing knives no longer held much meaning against anything close to her strength. "What are you?"

"Oh, poo, you're no fun." The girl climbed to her feet and rubbed her behind, even though she landed on her head. "I'm here to give you a hand, and you're being terrible hosts. What happened to putting out a nice pot of tea, and talking about how great it is to see each other again? Did your sense of hospitality die with the rest of you?"

"Her name is Ada. She doesn't mean any harm, which makes her all the more dangerous." Scratch came up through the floor in a much more graceful display than their other surprise guest. He gave a meaningful nod to Calenda. "Hey, Sis, lovin' the new look."

"Scratch!" Ada jumped toward Scratch, arms spread as she ran through the spirit and hugged open air. "It's been so long!"Your new friends are quite rude, you know. Not like you at all, you're my favorite because you're always so polite!"

Scratch looked at the others while floating behind Ada's back. "You heard the crazy lady, be more like me, I'm a regular Prince Charming." His amusement was feigned, for he knew better than most that they were one wrong word from utter disaster. "It ain't their fault, lots of mortals get on edge when people drop in without sending word ahead."

"But I did! And they were ever-so-grateful and thanked me for..." Ada stopped for a moment. "Oh, that hasn't happened yet, has it?"

"Totally understandable, happens to the best of us." Scratch looked at the others. "Isn't that right?"

"Sure, I forget things that haven't happened yet all the time," Lemia said while backing toward a possible exit. She'd seen more than a handful of the unhinged during her years in the slum, but none of them held the sort of power this girl had. She wielded void magic the same way Elruin wielded necromancy; an intrinsic bond that was as natural to them as walking was to normal people.

"You, too?!" Ada appeared behind Lemia without any indication that she was moving. "I'm so glad to hear that! I mean, not that it happens to you, but sometimes it feels like I'm the only one in the world that has that problem!"

"Gah!" Lemia jumped and twisted the wrong direction, then back around to face Ada while the madwoman kept rambling. "Uh, sure, now can you remind me why we, uh, are going to thank you?"

"Oh, yeah, I asked you why you don't just transpose the rune magic onto, uh, her." Ada pointed at Cali. "The magic won't hurt her."

"Transpose? I don't know what that means..." Lemia considered her words, and their implications. "... Yet?"

Ada rolled her eyes. "Why can't causality learn to keep up? Look, it's easy, I'll show you. Hey, necromancer." She pointed to Elruin. "Blast me, right now! Don't worry, you can't hurt me, nobody can. Well, one person can, but I think she's asleep right now."

Elruin hesitated for long enough that Scratch took initiative. "Don't worry, Ada knows what she's doing, for a certain loose definition of 'doing'. This won't hurt anyone." He left out the word 'important' at the end.

"Alright, if you're sure it won't hurt you." Elruin brought up her hand, and put a conscious effort into reducing her power to the weakest possible blast before she fired upon Ada. A moment later, Calenda gasped as she received a fresh dose of 'clean' necromantic power. Elruin turned her head to look at her big sister. "You made me hit Cali?"

"No, I transposed Cali and myself," Ada said. "The spell hit me, but it's her essence that felt the effects."

Lemia caught on fastest. "So if we transpose the runebone victims with Cali right before we set them off, then they'll hit her instead. But since she's already dead, it won't have any impact! That's brilliant. There's just one problem: I can't cast that spell."

"But you have sarite to cast it with!"

"I do?" Lemia recovered. "Are you sure that's something that's happened?"

"Yeah, it's right here." Ada lifted one of the crystals Lemia carried that came off the void tendril-monsters between her finger and thumb. "See?"

Oh. "I, uh, learn how to use those later."

"C'mon, Ada, you can't expect mere mortals like them to keep up with the likes of you," Scratch said. Later, he'd explain to Lemia how he'd saved her, complete with a description of how she was going to repay him. "Surely there was a time when you needed time to learn things?"

"Ugh, don't remind me." Ada put her hands over her blushing face. "Fine, I'll do it slow and you watch."

The next ten minutes were a lesson for all of them in the gulf between their talents. Ada's impatient desire to skip past the learning process became ever more apparent, but in time she did manage to show Lemia how to harness and attune herself to void shards while Cali and Elruin stayed on the sidelines trying to comprehend the jumbled mess of magic that was Ada's power.

"And now that you know how to transpose, I better get those sweet cakes you're about to promise me."

"I..." Lemia hadn't so much as thought about sweet cakes before Ada brought the subject up. "Sure, I know a great bakery. Just be sure to visit after I buy them, or we might go through this mess all over again."

"Again?" Ada shook her head. "And I thought I had it bad. But I gotta go now before they find out I've been visiting. Tell Uewatsu I'm gonna eat sweets until I get so fat that I can't see my toes!"

This is why there are rules! Scratch considered his options, torn between the possibility of making himself look suspicious to the others, or risking the confrontation start too soon and end with him dying for real. His best chance was that they'd imagine it was more of her rambling lunacy.

"They?" Calenda dashed his hope that nobody would think too much of the madwoman's words. "Who's 'they'?"

"You don't know? It's the guys playing with you."

"You're getting confused again," Scratch tried in vain. "Nobody's playing with us. Yet." Perhaps he could play off the choice of words as him cooperating with Ada's delusions.

"I'm quite sure they are, because they found a crazy necromancer and moved him here, and the crazy fire dude who thought he was a god, and the... uh... oh, right, I guess I'm not supposed to talk about that. Bye!" Ada fell through the floor, into another of her magic generated holes in reality.

"Huh, well that was g-urk!" Scratch was interrupted from his attempt to dive into the ground by Calenda's grip on his head.

"Now where do you imagine you are going?" Cali pulled him away from his refuged and held him at eye level. "Start explaining, before I become the first person ever to murder a ghost."

"Sorry, sis, others beat y-ouch! Okay, fine, I'll tell you what I know!" He lied to her face, while formulating the more complex web of half truths and whole fabrications he needed to weave together to hold the deceptions together. "It ain't much, but remember that death cult I mentioned way back when?"

"Something about them wanting to kill the world, right?" Calenda scoffed, making it clear she didn't buy it. "We both know that a group like that can't do what these guys seem to have done."

"Okay, look, they have a better reason behind their goals than I made it sound. But, let me ask a question that explains it. How people do you know are twins, or triplets? How often do you see single children being born at all?"

"I don't know, single children are pretty rare, maybe one in fifty births?" Calenda looked over at Elruin for a moment. "Ell was a singular birth, are we supposed to believe that's their motive? Killing single children?"

"No, they're not that discriminate, and their goals run deeper," Scratch said. "Here's another question, how long do human women stay pregnant before they give birth?"

"Assuming they don't get pregnant again while already pregnant? Almost a full season. This is common knowledge, and I don't see what it has to do with anything."

"Because it's not normal," Scratch said. "Even two hundred years ago, triplets were more rare than single births are today. Six hundred years ago, and single children were more than half of all births. I'm told that long ago, back when things were stable, it took nine months for human babies to be born, and twins were only one in every eight births. Other animals were also slower. Still faster than humans, but not this much faster."

"Let's pretend I believe you." The problem for Calenda was that she was starting to believe it, if only because nobody would believe such an outlandish lie. "Why? And what does this have to do with the cult?"

"The buildup of life magic, somehow." Scratch knew he had to keep that a secret, whatever else he revealed. "I don't know how or why, I don't think anyone does, but life magic has been growing in strength for thousands of years. A little more, a little faster, every generation. This death cult is... trying to reverse the process. By killing lots and lots of people, monsters, and animals. I think they have some sort of more complex strategy, damned if I know what it is." He was damned, and he did know, and they could not be allowed to find out.

"And this is where we come in?" Cali asked. "Why?"

"What part of 'I don't know' do you not understand?"

"Then start guessing!" Calenda squeezed, inflicting what she hoped was pain on the annoying ghost.

"Okay! Fine! I'll guess." Scratch writhed, putting on a good show. "They don't act all the time, they do things in cycles, so I'm guessing there's some sort of ritual component. Or maybe they work like nomads and pick a new place to wreck every few years. The world's big, maybe it takes centuries for them to run out of new places and go back to the old ones."

"And what does this have to do with them messing with us?" Since Lemia couldn't threaten Scratch, she relied on Cali to do it for her.

"I! Don't! Know!" Scratch shifted some more. "Maybe they're hoping to spark an undeath wildfire? That'd keep a land nice and cleansed of life energy for a long time while they move on to a new project. Or maybe, being a death cult, they like to study necromancers? The only thing I can say for certain is that nothing survives their attention, be it people or nations, they don't leave living witnesses."

Pity there weren't any gods who could control Ada, or Scratch would have prayed to it that she didn't show up again until it was too late. But if there was a god that could control Ada, he could have prayed to it to fix the real problem.

Calenda relaxed her grip and allowed Scratch to escape. "It... makes more sense than I care to admit. Tell me, what's your role in this tale? And I don't want to hear you say you have none."

"If I have my way? I'd like to march up to them start carving away every part of them that they don't need to survive, and then leave the rest in the sun to dry. Unfortunately for me, I've yet to find anyone strong enough to stop them. Except maybe Ada, and she wouldn't kill a goldfish. Unless she was trying to keep it alive, then all bets are off."

The whole time, Elruin had been listening, and imagining how these people had been killing people for so long. If they were responsible for Claron, then they were also responsible for Cali having to die and all the other terrible things that they saw.

"Then I'm going to get strong enough to stop them."

=====

For those who don't know their historical medicinal practices: tinctures are drugs dissolved in alcohol, and poppy extract is basically morphine. I'm told it carries quite a punch.

Ada is batshit insane, but it's not her fault she's dancing to the tune of a different time/space. Umm, well, to be fair it *is* her fault, but not completely.

And I cannot for the life of me believe this story lasted this long without a single person mentioning that it seemed strange that almost everyone in the story was either a twin or triplet

Sorry for the delay. Part of it's spring cleaning, part of it's my 'other' job, part of it's me having sleep problems (I'm a chronic insomniac, I'm told I have been since I was a toddler, but the last couple weeks have been brutal), and part of it's trying to get my footing in converting this from 'quest' to 'normal story'. And part of it's that this is a 4k word freakin' monster. Oi.

That said, I'm seeing the signs of burnout by frustration, so I have changed to canceling (this iteration of) Requiem early. I simply cannot write this story as a story, due to the nature of the outline and all those possible paths I'd love to explore but can't in a single sitting. Paradoxically, I'm being caged in by too many options. I'll be putting up an official "ending post" soon to go into real details, but this here is the last chapter of my Requiem for now. I fully intend to do a reboot, but I have no idea when.

I am, however, glad I got to reveal (some of) the Big Bad's motivations in this story. That'll keep people guessing until I get around to finishing the story.

Because I am a bastard.