by Dakota Krout
A few minutes after the Necromancers moved off into the town, the portal shimmered again, and an agitated, regal looking man stepped through. He looked around carefully, the twin swords on his back swaying gently in the wind, creating a slight chiming sound. Sighing, he turned toward the portal attendant.
“Pardon me, child. Have you perchance seen a greasy old pervert come through here?” The unkind words didn’t match up with his mellow voice.
The attendant didn’t look up from his ledger. “My job is to monitor outgoing, not incoming. If you have a question or complaint, please feel free to contact the department of magical vergence located at the Portal Guild in the capital-”
“I get it, you aren’t going to be useful.” The man began to walk away gracefully, his every movement flowing and screaming that a master of the sword had appeared.
The attendant finally looked up from his book over a minute later. “Hey, there’s no call to be rude.” He blinked owlishly as he noticed no one was around. “Ugh.”
~ Chapter Twenty-Three ~
“...and that is why it is so important for you to stabilize your cultivation after increasing in ranking. Your body can and will break down. Burnout is a real possibility.” Craig was just finishing his most recent lecture of Essence usage. “One that you seem to be avoiding, but by the look of you it will start tearing you apart pretty soon if you continue at this pace.”
“But burnout is just the temporary damage of your meridians, is it not?” Dale questioned. “If you use too much or absorb too much, it just means you need to take it easy for a while afterward. Like catching a cold.”
Craig looked thoughtful. Pondering the answer he should give his student, he stroked his chin. “Well, initially that may be true. But I believe you need to think of it in a slightly different way. For example, if you build a sturdy wall and a chunk of it is smashed out, you can repair it, correct?”
“Yes. Fairly easily, too, I assume.” Dale nodded along as he re-read his most recent notes.
“Now, say that you keep putting holes in that wall and slowly patching it,” Craig continued, knowing that he had Dale hooked with this parable. “Wherever you have many patches, the overall wall becomes weak. Now, say you have patches all over the place and you take a solid hit to the wall. What happens? The entire wall crumbles, no longer able to support itself. That is real burnout. The total collapse of your meridians. Burnout is something everyone under the Mage ranks is fighting against, and it is a race against time.”
“Because reaching the Mage ranks fixes your meridians to their original perfection?” Dale inserted a question while furiously scribbling fresh notes.
“It does. Also, it is normally a very slow race, since it takes decades to enter the Mage ranks. When done by following the standard practices, anyway.” His voice was getting quite pointed, which Dale didn’t fail to notice as he wrote. Though he would prefer to have the lad looking at him while they talked, Craig was pleased to have such an attentive student. “The fewer ‘patches’ that Mana needs to fix, the higher your overall strength and control will be to start with. This is why people getting into the Mage ranks very young is cause for them to be celebrated as geniuses and massive talents. A very young Mage and a very old Mage are things to be afraid of.”
“The young because he is very skilled, and the old because an elderly looking Mage is exceedingly powerful?” Dale was continuing to write rapidly as he asked this.
“Correct.” Craig smiled warmly. “I think that is all for tonight, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I have more questions!” Dale protested anxiously, finally looking up from his paper.
Craig shook his head. “We have time. If you progress correctly, you are essentially immortal. Take your time. Really learn what you are taught. Maybe take a vacation, as well.”
Dale sighed and stood up. He bowed, thanked Craig, and left the small room they had been occupying. His mind was in disarray as new ideas whirled around his brain. He wanted to find a quiet place to look at his meridians, which had been forcibly opened. How long did he have before he burned out like Craig was talking about? If he did, would the dungeon be able to fix him?
A splashing sound jarred him from his thoughts as he took a step. A puddle? No way, it was the middle of winter. Puddles didn’t happen naturally this time of year. He grimaced and kicked his shoe, trying to stop his feet from getting soaked. As he did so, a very familiar smell assaulted his nostrils. The coppery tang of blood. Instantly, Dale was on high alert. He wanted to shout a warning to the town, but he didn’t know what kind of enemy they were facing. Dale looked around, seeing no one standing. He peeked around the corner and found the source of the blood. A trio of Dark Elves were unceremoniously piled together, chunks of flesh torn out of them.
“The dungeon must have let out a swarm!” Dale thought in fury. He started to shout, but stopped at the last second. “Wait… Dark Elves are almost all at least at the Mage ranking… and if not, there will always be at least one Mage in their squads. It can’t have been the dungeon.” He quickly spun around, hurrying back to the room he had been studying in with Craig.
Craig was already gone, having found an egress in the opposite direction. Dale hurried down the hallway, frustrated at his uselessness. He was in the newest building in the city, a town hall that was built to host negotiations and delegations. There were rooms for meetings and for sleeping quarters. Right now there were only a few people living in the building, so it was mostly empty. Where was everyone? It was so quiet. Too quiet. His instincts suddenly screamed a warning, and he dove forward, rolling away.
He jumped to his feet and looked around. Nothing there. It was just his imagination. Dale took a few deep breaths and broke into a run, scurrying toward the front entryway. He threw open the door, revealing a scene straight from a nightmare. Screaming cultivators ran through the streets, either toward battle or away from it. The sky was clear tonight, and the moon cast a ghastly glow on the city. Fresh blood was flowing downhill as a horde of undead marched the streets.
A flash of fire ignited the walking corpses, burning them terribly. All this did was throw ash in the air and create charred, walking skeletons. The flames were not intense enough to incinerate the group of bodies completely, so only the weak, leading edge was affected. The shambling zombies that had their flesh removed in this manner were suddenly able to move much more nimbly, clattering along the road. Using their bones as their weapons, they stabbed at any available target. Groups of cultivators worked together, now trying to dismantle or pulverize the animated dead.
Any cultivator that fell didn’t get a chance to rest peacefully, as they were soon inhabited and worn as a carapace for an infernal soul. The cultivators were losing and losing badly. The reason for this was abundantly clear; the entire battle was absolutely silent. Someone had obviously used a powerful technique or incantation to block sound from traveling. Because of this, there were far too few defenders showing up. They trickled into the fight one by one, and because of this, they were rolled over and assimilated into the attacking force.
Dale was furious. He ran as fast as he could toward the Guild area, noticing that there seemed to be a barricade of the dead preventing people from getting into the entrance, and the new wall around the Guildhall made other entry points nonexistent. If he had to guess, no one in the central Guild had been informed of–or noticed–what was going on in the rest of the town. Stupid shutters on windows! Why hadn’t he just forced everyone to stay in tents?
He looked for any way that he could get into the area, and his eyes landed on the church. For the first time, he was happy that Father Richard had built such a grandiose building. Dale raced to the church, finding that there was a similar series of undead blocking the entrances. Luckily, they had not done more than cluster around the main door yet. He ran at the wall, hidden from the view of any undead, and focused on his Essence. With a rapid series of movements, he released his Chi as an attack. With a soundless explosi
on the wall in front of him shattered… well… a small hole appeared. Just large enough for him to squeeze through in a very undignified manner.
A cleric ran up as Dale stood, dust covering him. “Are you out of your mind?” The cleric blustered at the dust-covered man. “Father Richard paid a fortune to have those walls made and reinforced! You are coming with me right now to get held accountable for your actions!”
“You want me to go with you to Father Richard?” Dale stopped his current plan to just start shouting, and looked at the red-faced cleric. “Is he in here?”
“Of course he is! And yes, you are coming, whether you want to or not!” The cleric was literally hopping mad. “Follow!”
Dale started jogging, making the cleric sputter as he tried to match the pace and lead the way. “Hmph! Well! At least you are in a hurry to make amends!”
Dale wanted to grin, but the situation was grim. He held his tongue until the cleric began pounding on a door. Father Richard opened it almost instantly, though there was no way he had been standing near it. “Yes?” he asked the cleric respectfully, knowing that he wouldn't be interrupted without a good reason.
“Father Richard, this man-” The cleric began, instantly being cut off by Dale.
“Father! The city is under attack by the undead. We need to alert the Guild and launch a counter attack!” Dale shouted over the now-white-faced cleric.
“Are you joking…? Of course you aren’t.” Father Richard stepped into the hall. He looked at the cleric. “Good job getting him here quickly, go alert the remaining chosen. It is time to fulfill our duty and protect our flock.”
Dale and Richard ran toward the arena where the clerics would begin gathering. They ran to the top of the arena wall, jumping to the edge to look at the bloody scene. Father Richard looked grim. “I can destroy the majority of these easily, but there must be an A-ranked summoner here. Look.” He pointed at the mountainous abominations. “Those are actually a swarm of bodies, a huge mound of fused flesh. Only High Summoners can control them–barely–and they are moving easily. This is someone powerful. I don’t see any behemoths, but these abominations will be more than enough to wipe out this city if we don’t act soon.”
“What should I do?” Dale began warming up, preparing to fight his way to the Guild.
“Hide like a scared little forest Elf?” Father Richard suggested offhandedly. “Dale, I am serious. You don’t seem to understand the difference in power here. You’ve been defeating enemies you should not be able to and surviving situations you shouldn’t have. That won’t happen if you try to fight these things. You need to go find a defendable place, take others of similar ranking with you, and hope that the monsters outside don’t look for you too hard.”
“I can help!” Dale insisted, shocked that he had been told to flee like a coward.
Richard looked at him angrily. “Boy, I think you need another lesson. I am an A-ranked Mage. Let me show you what we are up against. What you are volunteering to go fight.”
Father Richard looked out at the gathered undead and began to chant in a sonorous voice. The first syllable that fell from his lips made the air shake, “And in Thy loving kindness cut off mine enemies, and destroy all those who afflict mine soul; for I am Thy servant.” As he chanted, it seemed that dawn had come. The heavens lit up, and the stars dimmed to indiscernibility. “For thou doth connect all things, and all things are connected to thee. By the power thou hast imparted upon me, reduce all things unnatural to their unbound form, that they may be returned to the earth to be used in thine works.”
Dale had blood dripping from his eyes as he struggled to stay conscious. The air was thrumming with accumulated power, and what sounded like a great blast from a horn was heard throughout the city. All of the undead in sight were torn apart as celestial Mana ravaged them. They began falling into piles of meat or dust, depending on their original state. Whatever had been sealing sound was broken, and screaming was soon filling the night. Wounded were everywhere, and the celestial attack had not been perfectly targeted, damaging many that were not undead. Not just a few were bleeding from their ears, and survivors of the night caught in the vibrations would be urinating blood for at least a week.
“That seemed to work,” Dale quipped when he was again able to speak. Richard shot him an uncharacteristic glare.
“Think so? Take another look.” The priest gestured at the largest mounds of flesh, as the abominations began shifting and reconfiguring into mobile forms. The piles of destroyed undead around the mounds flowed into them, and the formless masses rose higher and stronger than before. One of them grasped its arm, tearing it off and throwing it into an area where many dead people were strewn about. The arm landed and swiftly expanded, covering the bodies and forming into a small, new abomination.
“...So where would you like me to hide? Who should I bring with me?” Dale turned toward the now-smirking priest.
“I am sure that the necromancers are in the dungeon by this point. The open rooms and even the fortifications will be useless. I want you to get everyone into the fourth floor, find an out of the way tunnel, and bunker down. Your only hope is that they ignore you in favor of whatever they are after. Now that the Guild is alerted,” indeed, the Guild was now moving like a kicked anthill, “We will soon have several Mages on their way. We have me, Frank, Chandra, and Amber for certain. We may have more in the way of Dark Elves, but it is unlikely that any of them could challenge an A-ranker.”
“Can Frank challenge an A-ranker?” Dale was surprised, Frank was well-known to be in the B-ranks. His hopes for an easy victory were crushed.
“Doubtful. But if there are A-ranks, there are certainly subordinate B-rankers as well. All of our Mages will be needed tonight, I’m afraid,” Richard finished heavily, jabbing a finger toward the door. “Now go!”
Dale rushed down to the gathered clerics and began to relay Richard's orders. Soon they were all moving to the fourth floor of the dungeon as Dale held the portal open for them.
~ Chapter Twenty-Four ~
I knew they were Necromancers almost as soon as they walked in. Their auras stank of death and fear. Also, they soon began throwing around infernal Essence. It didn’t help their case when they brought a Basher back to life, either. I glared at them as they walked along my tunnels, using the poor bunny to set off each trap in their way.
“Too bad we had to lay low. I’d love to be there when the ranks are ‘bolstered’.” One of the reeking men giggled at whatever twisted thoughts were niggling along his puny mind. “Gonna need a lot of ‘em to finish off the Lion Kingdom.”
“Not really. They are so weak from that mushroom plague that they are on the verge of collapse already,” another commented, making me annoyed. I get it, I did something dumb. “I bet we could finish the Lion off with one solid attack.”
The Mage in their group spoke suddenly, making the others flinch at the venom in his tone, “Rushing ahead is what got us into this mess! First the lost war and now a mere ten years after what happened with Kantor, where we found the key to victory, you want to rush again?”
What the abyss? Kantor? What did they do to Kantor? How did they do something to Kantor? I was sucked into the conversation, listening raptly, even while boosting the traps and outfitting the Goblins with better gear. Even my Cats were getting a bit of armor on them. The Bobs were frantically drawing Runes and preparing for a full scale war against the five men. I started pulling out the weapon we designed after the terrifying greasy man threatened me.
“It isn’t about rushing, per say,” the first invader wheedled. “It’s more… getting a nice place in society while young enough to enjoy it! We’ve been on the outskirts for so long, pushed down whenever we got close to respect. I think it is time we got ours! Got our chance to be on top!” The other C-rankers grinned and nodded along with the impromptu speech.
The Mage had a look of fury on his face. In a fit of anger, he swung his fist and reduced a Basher to a shower of gore. �
��You fools,” he breathed softly. “What have you done to earn a place in society? You self-righteous, entitled little shits. Have you learned nothing from The Master? You think that we are here to play at being better than others, to lord our victory over them? That when we inevitably win, we are going to be the oppressors? Fools.” He cursed loudly and marched past them.
“Well, then, what’s the abyssal point?” the ornery speaker broke in. “Why bother with all of this?”
“Why indeed.” The Mage looked over coldly. “Since you seem to have forgotten, I’ll make sure The Master gives you a refresher course.”
“Hey, hey. No need for any of that! I’m just making conversation!” The man had broken out in a sweat now. Apparently, this ‘Master’ was a scary fellow.
“Let’s get the job done, and we will talk more about this later.” The Mage groaned. “I hate people.”
“You know you love us.”
The Mage seemed to have a permanent scowl by this point. “I’d sell you to a demon for a copper.”
“That’s cold, boss-man.”
“So is the abyss. Wanna visit?” The Mage had a bit of a smirk now.
“Hey, now. I’ve been at that lecture. The abyss isn’t cold; it isn’t anything. It just… is.”
“I thought that was the void?”
“Oh dang. Yeah, you’re right.”
They eventually made it to the second floor, not stopping for treasure or going out of their way to look for other things of interest. This told me that they could only be here for one thing. Me. I wasn’t sure why or what they were planning to do with me, but I needed to make sure they failed.
