by Pirateaba
Next to Ceria, Pisces sat up, looking suddenly alert and slightly worried. Ceria scooted closer to the table, staring at Erin.
“Yeah. Ryoka mentioned him. What about your skeleton, Erin? What happened?”
The girl looked at Pisces.
“He’s your creation, isn’t he? Can you tell where he is now?”
Pisces hesitated, then shook his head.
“I’m not linked to him at the moment. I can sense him, but only vaguely. He’s…to the south, a good distance away.”
“Okay. That makes sense. It…matches with what I’ve heard.”
Erin’s face was troubled. Ceria saw Yvlon staring at Pisces and the way the mage stared hard at Erin’s face.
“What did my creation do, exactly?”
“I’ll tell you all I know. But it—it makes no sense.”
Briefly, Erin told the adventurers everything that had led up to her arriving at Celum. Ceria watched Pisces’ face. It changed only a little as Erin spoke, but when she talked about Toren disappearing he glanced down at his hands.
“I don’t know what happened. I just fell asleep…and then I was all the way over here. Toren must have dragged me here in the sled when I slept. But he left me in the middle of nowhere.”
“I see.”
The Human [Mage] tapped the table, seeming to think. He looked…slightly worried, Ceria thought, and a foreboding feeling appeared in her chest.
“Pisces. What happened to Erin’s skeleton?”
“I have a number of theories but…it would be best to collect more information first. Miss Erin, have you heard anything else of your skeleton?”
Erin nodded, and now she looked…sad. Terribly sad.
“I kept asking Wesle—the [Guardsman]—about him. At first there was nothing. But…the other day he told me a skeleton on the road was attacking people. He killed a bunch of travelers and buried them in the snow. A group of adventurers nearly got killed by him, and afterwards they found all the dead people. Over twenty of them.”
All four people in the room stared at Pisces. He raised his hands defensively.
“I didn’t order him to do that!”
“Well then, what the hell happened!?”
Ceria stood up in her chair. She pointed a finger at Pisces, who flinched.
“That sure sounds like your spell failing! Did Toren lose control somehow? Why did he start killing people?”
“I don’t know. I have an idea but—”
“That’s not all.”
Erin interrupted the two. They stared at her. Erin stared at them in the darkness, her face only lit by the few candles burning low in the inn.
“There’s more. A bunch of reports just came from Esthelm.”
Yvlon stirred in her seat, looking confused.
“Esthelm? I thought it was destroyed.”
Erin nodded.
“It was. But apparently a bunch of people survived. They managed to retake the city—they fought off another army of Goblins and a bunch of undead. Apparently, a Goblin army came by just as all the dead in the city began to rise. And they were being led by a skeleton. One who could fight like a swordsman and had purple eyes.”
Pisces froze in his seat. Ceria stared at him, but Erin wasn’t looking at either of them.
“The people apparently were being led by this [Knight] guy. He saved them. Everyone’s talking about him. The Savior of Esthelm. A Gold-rank adventurer named Ylawes Byres.”
Yvlon froze in her seat, eyes wide. Ceria stared at her.
“Is that a relative of yours, Yvlon?”
She vaguely remembered the name from somewhere. Where? Then Ceria remembered.
The pit. The pit of insanity. At one point Yvlon had claimed to be Ylawes. Now the woman closed her eyes. When she opened them, she smiled ruefully.
“I know Ylawes. He’s my older brother. He must have journeyed south to see me. He normally works far to the north, around our family estates.”
Everyone stared at Yvlon. She just shrugged, tired.
“Surprised? I’m only a Silver-rank, but my brother’s quite famous up north. His team—the Silver Swords—often take up causes like this one. Esthelm’s just another one of his triumphs.”
“I’ve heard of the Silver Swords.”
It wasn’t as if Ceria knew all of the adventurer teams by heart, but the Gold-rank ones tended to stick in one’s memory. But she’d never known Yvlon had a brother. Then again, she’d never asked. It was suprising to say the least, but Yvlon didn’t seem to want to talk about her brother at the moment. She looked at Erin.
“Putting aside my brother…you said Toren was spotted at Esthelm?”
Erin nodded unhappily.
“Yeah. Leading the undead. They killed a lot of people. The attacking Goblins too, but a lot of people. It was definitely him.”
She looked at Pisces, helpessly.
“Why did he do it? Why did he run off and…”
All eyes were on the mage. He shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. Twice he glanced at Ceria, but then he sighed and sat up in his chair.
“Numerous theories come to mind. He could have been controlled, or simply gone rampant if my spells failed. However, both outcomes are unlikely in the extreme. My best theory is that he simply…grew too powerful for your commands to control him. And he decided to go his own way.”
“How?”
The word came sharply from Ceria. She stared at Pisces, heart beating faster.
“Toren’s just a skeleton, isn’t he?”
She remembered the skeleton’s gaze, almost intelligent. Almost alive. Pisces hesitated.
“He may have developed the capacity for thought.”
“Toren?”
Erin looked incredulous. So did Yvlon. Ksmvr just stared silently at Pisces as the mage nodded.
“It can happen. Revenants retain the personality of their former selves. Toren is no Revenant of course, but he could have gained the…ability to think.”
“Gained.”
The word was heavy on her tongue. Ceria couldn’t look away from Pisces.
“You keep using words like that. Gain. Grew. But the undead can’t grow. They’re not alive. They can’t change unless a [Necromancer] alters them in some way. Nothing can. Unless they can level.”
Pisces stared past Ceria. Silent. Unmoving. Ceria’s pulse was thunder in her ears. She remembered the past. She remembered Wistram, and she gave voice to her fears.
“Toren couldn’t have changed. Unless you did it. You actually did it. You gave him, an undead, the ability to level.”
Erin’s eyes grew wide across the table. Yvlon sat up straight, and even Ksmvr grew shocked. Ceria just stared at Pisces. He looked ahead, face emotionless. Then, slowly, the façade broke. His lips turned up. He looked at Ceria.
And smiled.
“You bastard!”
Ceria leapt from her chair. She knocked Pisces out of his seat, and slung him to the ground. He gasped as she put her hands around his throat and tried to choke him. Ceria felt him push her hands off him as Pisces backed away, speaking quickly, urgently.
“I didn’t know he would gain any type of sentience! His capability to level up was only meant to be a feature, nothing more!”
“You knew! You gave Erin an undead that could level! Are you insane!?”
Ceria pursued Pisces, ready to punch his brains out. To her surprise, hands grabbed her. Ksmvr used three of his to hold her, and Yvlon grabbed her other arm. Erin was just sitting at the table, looking blank and shocked.
“Yvlon!”
“Calm down, Ceria. We need to know just what Pisces did before you beat him to a pulp.”
The look in the woman’s eyes clearly said a beating was in order either way. Pisces gulped, but began to explain. He was too eager to do so. Ceria glared at him across the table as the [Necromancer]’s eyes lit up as he told the group what he had done.
“Yes, Ceria is right. I created an undead that could level. Toren, as Erin named
him. He was just an experimental prototype—something meant to repay her and guard her inn. But I wanted to see if he could level as well, so I gave him to Erin. I never expected him to gain sentience, though.”
“He can think?”
Erin stared at Pisces, looking horrified. He hesitated, and then nodded.
“He must be able to, to abandon you and do what he has done. Had you noticed him taking independent action or…questioning your orders?”
“I didn’t—I thought it was just him being weird. But now…”
Erin stared at her hands, blinking.
“I—yeah. He did. He was acting so odd lately and I was going to bug you about it. He can think? He’s alive?”
“And he can level.”
Ceria glared at Pisces. He edged away from her, but it was Yvlon who spoke. The woman looked deeply troubled.
“How? How is that possible? I’ve never heard of a leveling undead, ever. Not even the greatest [Necromancers] could make one.”
“More like none of them were crazy enough to try. Any undead that can level will eventually rebel, just like Golems.”
Ceria glared at Pisces. The young man raised his hands, looking nervous but elated.
“I told you it was possible. I told them all at Wistram. Toren was proof I could do it. But I never expected him to level up quickly enough to subvert my control. I did check, you know, whenever I saw him.”
“Not well enough. Look what’s happened!”
“How, though?”
Ksmvr was the one to speak. He stared at Pisces, looking troubled.
“Is comrade Pisces truly that great of a prodigy? Or is his level high enough that he is able to create such a miraculous undead through some Skill?”
The half-Elf shook her head, smiling darkly.
“He didn’t learn how to make leveling undead by himself. He’s not that smart.”
Pisces opened his mouth and then shrank back in his chair as everyone glared at him. Ceria explained.
“A Golem taught him. A Truestone Construct; one of the most powerful types of Golems in the world taught him an incomplete formula for creating beings capable of leveling up. And he—completed it.”
“So you made a thinking, leveling undead.”
Yvlon’s eyes could have bored a hole through the mage. He shook his head.
“I was taught a theoretical piece of magic, it’s true. But it’s still not perfect. It wasn’t even certain my creation—Toren—would be able to level.”
“But he did. And he learned to think!”
“Evidently.”
Pisces stared uncomfortably at Erin, and then away. She had a haunted, horrified look on her face.
“I made him do chores. But he could think the entire time?”
“Erin…”
Ceria reached out and touched her friend. Erin shuddered, and then stared at Pisces angrily.
“Okay, he was alive. But why did he start killing people? I never told him to do that! He just did chores for me!”
Pisces spread his hands out, helplessly.
“He probably wished to. I can only speculate, but as I told you once, Toren is not meant for peaceful activities. He may have rebelled out of his desire to fight.”
“Why? He’s not evil! I mean—he wasn’t made that way, right? All he did was do chores! How could he just kill like that?”
Erin tried to snap her fingers, but couldn’t. She was trembling. Pisces closed his eyes, when he opened them, he looked regretful for a moment.
“It is what he was made to do. You see—I made him to fight, to protect. I imbued him with the capability for rational thought in the fashion of Golems. Problem-solving skills; but nothing more, certainly not a groundwork for actual cognition. But I never gave him anything else.”
Erin turned towards Ceria. The half-Elf crossed her arms.
“He didn’t give him a conscience. Or…morality.”
“What? Why not?”
Pisces shrugged eloquently at Yvlon. She clenched her fist, and Ceria interjected.
“He can’t. He doesn’t know how.”
“Then why make a creature like that? You’re just inviting trouble!”
Ceria wasn’t about to defend Pisces on that. He just looked at her, though, haughty and unrepentant.
“Cognita has no moral compass. She functions well enough without one.”
“She’s a monster too. She’s killed more [Mages] than any other being in the world, I’ll wager. She might be helpful to some, but you know she’ll kill without a qualm as well.”
Pisces nodded reluctantly, but he still didn’t appear convinced what he’d done was wrong. Remorseful, yes, guilty, even. But he looked like he’d done when he stood in front of the Council of Wistram the day they’d exiled him. He was certain, and it made Ceria sick because at least in some way, he was right.
He’d done it. He’d actually done it. She could hardly bear to look at him.
Pisces turned back to Erin. The young woman was pale. She looked like she was about to vomit. The [Mage] modulated his tone, spoke softly and, for Pisces, gently.
“Let me be clear, Erin. This was not your fault. The error lay with me in underestimating the capability of my creation. Toren was a loyal servant until he grew strong enough to break the orders you and I had given him. Now he is a threat.”
“A killer. He killed people. Men. Women. Children. But he’s also like…a baby, isn’t he?”
“An odd way of looking at it. But I suppose he would be young.”
“Could you change him? Make him…not kill people?”
Erin looked up at Pisces, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. Ceria waited too. Pisces hesitated, but after a moment shook his head regretfully.
“I could stop him, perhaps. But it would be dangerous and all I would be able to do is render him harmless. Ceria is correct: I cannot give him a conscience. I do not know how. No one does.”
“You have to stop him.”
Yvlon said that. She stood up, staring at Pisces and Erin.
“If what you say is true, that skeleton is a huge threat. A thinking undead, one capable of leveling and leading others? It could become a threat capable of taking on Gold-ranked adventurers soon if not stopped.”
“Yeah.”
Erin’s voice was quiet, but her eyes were suddenly focused. Her hands—she kept them on the table, but they trembled as she looked at Pisces.
“Can you stop him?”
“I can.”
The [Necromancer] said it quietly. He looked at Ceria and she understood.
“Severing the link?”
“It’s the easiest way.”
Pisces explained to Erin and the others.
“Erin feeds Toren with her natural mana. No matter how far away she is, he and she are connected. Without her mana, he cannot survive, powerful as he may be. If I cut it, he will cease to…live.”
Silence fell over the room. Yvlon opened her mouth, clearly wanting to tell Pisces to do it now, but she stopped when she saw Erin’s face. Ceria understood, a little bit. For all Erin yelled at her skeleton, Ceria had seen it with her since as long as she’d known Erin. It was Erin’s…
What? Friend was too strong a word. The girl had thought Toren was a mindless tool for the entire time. But she’d relied on him, even liked him. What he was to her couldn’t be explained in words.
And now she had to kill him.
“Perhaps we can track him down.”
That came from Ceria’s mouth. She blinked when she said it, but everyone stared at her and so she spoke, desperately trying to give Erin another option.
“If we set out, we might be able to track him down. You said he was at Esthelm? He may still be in the area. Or we could find him, look for rumors—”
“No. Do it now.”
Erin cut her friend off. She stared at Pisces. The mage stared back, looking as shocked as Ceria felt.
“Now?”
“Yes. Cut Toren’s supply of mana right now. This i
nstant!”
“Are you sure?”
Why was Ksmvr saying that? But the Antinium had the same sense Ceria did. Erin was shuddering. Her face was pale and sweat stood out on her forehead. She was not well. But the look in her eyes was steel.
She spoke quietly to the others.
“He killed people. I asked, and I made sure. Toren killed people. Not just one, not just two, and not in self-defense. He killed them because…because he wanted to. And he’s going to keep killing people if he’s not stopped.”
She stopped, gulped. Erin closed her eyes, but then went on, voice hoarse, choking on her next words.
“If this were a movie…or a play…I’d be the stupid idiot who didn’t stop Toren before he killed thousands of people. He’s already killed dozens, maybe hundreds. And how strong would he become if he kept leveling up? Maybe if I knew I could find him I’d—but I can’t. He’s too far away. And I won’t let him kill anyone else. It has to be now.”
No one could answer her. It was the right decision. Pisces hesitated as Erin walked over to him.
“Do you need to cast a spell or something?”
“No. It’s a simple enough procedure. As the one who cast the spell I can unravel it. It will just take a minute—”
“Do it, then.”
Ceria stared at Pisces. He looked at her, uncertain. She just stared back. See, she wanted to ask him. See what you’ve done?
Pisces looked away. He made no sound, but after a moment laid his hands on Erin’s head. She shifted, once, and then was still.
No sound. No grand show of lights, no mystical chanting. Pisces just moved magic and Ceria saw a thread, thinner than silk and stronger than stone flowing from Erin out into the world. Pisces pulled at it and slowly, the connection broke.
That was it. It was over. He let go of Erin and she stared up at him.
“It’s done? He’s gone?”
“He will be. No undead can live without mana and Toren consumes…consumed more than most.”
“Okay.”
Erin took a few steps away from Pisces. She stared blankly at him, and then looked around the room. Everyone stared at her, Yvlon with a pale face, Ksmvr silently, Pisces full of what might have been regret, and Ceria with no idea what to say.
“I’m tired. I’m gonna go to sleep, okay?”
So saying, Erin began to walk up the stairs. She left the Horns of Hammerad behind and went into the small room that wasn’t hers and crawled onto the bed. She didn’t bother undressing, and lay down in the rough blanket. She put her pillow over her head, and curled up into the smallest ball possible.
