Mori looked at the hut before her with a confusion writhing along her soulful body. She glanced down at the slip of paper in her hand and read over it once more. It told her to go down the east-facing avenue from the fortress’ gate, take a left at the first artillery pit, then follow the narrow paths until she found a hut with a rainbow banner hanging from its door. She looked at the door, seeing the rainbow banner sway in the evening wind, and knew that she was in the right place.
It had not even been an hour after her meeting with her allies before she obtained the small note. A young woman bumped into her while she was walking through the paths of the fortress’ inner walls and slipped a note into her hand while she passed. Mori would have rolled her eye-flames at the secrecy, but she would not put it past the necromantic guild to have a way with such things.
The little note she was passed was longer than the paper’s size would have suggested, mentioning things like how many bodies they had in their crypt, the things she could do with those bodies, and all the knowledge and power they held. At the end of the note, they invited her to their crypt as well as any of her death knights if she so chose to bring them.
Mori, in the end, did not bring any of her death knights, leaving her entourage to continue their management of the fortress, left VII to explore around, and left Fara to sleep and Eva to do whatever she wanted to do. And so, after scouring the city of sand and huts, she finally found the hut with the rainbow banner on the front door. Staring at that banner, she wondered what it could have meant. It was unlikely to have the same meaning as on Earth, seeing as how free love was between people, and the only other idea she had was an invitation to all mages, no matter the color of their mana. Despite her pondering, she came to no conclusion, and instead strode up to the building and knocked on the sheet metal door.
A reply came a moment later, with someone cracking the door open and peeking through the gap between the door and the door frame. “Hello?” a quiet, almost timid voice asked.
“Hi,” Mori greeted, her skull mask smiling, “I was invited to discuss some… matters with your guild. May I enter?”
The person behind the door was silent for a few moments. Mori thought that she would have to leave, but a metal clunk came from behind the door. The door swung open and a young man, more of a boy than a man, stood before her, bowing and gesturing into the hallway behind him, “I-I greet the Madam Lich,’ he stuttered. Mori chuckled, stepping forward with a nod.
The hallway behind the boy was dark, but not pitch black. Torches lit with purple fire were placed evenly through the short hallway, all leading to a large, circular room at the end of it. “Interesting place you’ve got here,” Mori commented, “So, where to?”
The boy turned to her with wide eyes, “U-Uh… I-I don’t know anything, Madam. I am merely the newest initiate and I was assigned to watch the door,” he said quickly, “I-I believe that the guildmistress wants you to enter the c-crypt.” He then looked down, not meeting her curious gaze.
Mori turned without another word and meandered her way down the hallway, thinking. That sentence was important, Mori thought. First and most importantly, Gradel, that man she met in passing over half a month ago, was not the master of the guild. That honor went to another woman. That meant one of two things. It meant that either the guild faced internal strife and Gradel was deposed, or they fought against the Clockworks and Gradel died in the fighting, which was something she heard nothing about. She would have put more money on the latter option, as the guild did not seem very politics-driven when she met Gradel. There was always a chance, however, and she did not discount the option.
The second important detail that was revealed from the boy’s passing remark was the fact that they were getting new recruits. That was interesting to Mori, as she would have assumed that only those who devoted themselves to a trade or style of combat would dare join a Hive Extermination. She wondered if anyone fought without the assistance of mana, and they joined because they had mental room to immerse themselves in the thought patterns of necromancers, but put it out of her mind. She reached the circular room, all made of sandstone, and found a crude spiral staircase running down into the earth. Taking the invitation, she began her descent.
The third and final detail that she found interesting was that the guild needed someone to watch the door. While not as impactful as the other details, she did know that there should not have been a danger to the Necromancer’s Guild. It was a small fact, nothing that she could make a conclusion about, but she filed it away for later.
She continued her way down the stairs, going further and further down, until she finally found the bottom of the borehole. The ground floor reached just where the sand became sandstone, giving her a solid floor to walk upon, but there was nothing else in the room save for a purple-lit brazier and a large door frame. She strode through the door frame into the next room with confidence, able to see everything in the darkness under the earth. She had gotten glimpses of it as she strode to the door, but within the room she was able to take the entire crypt in without difficulty.
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It was a large chamber, three floors tall and railing-lined balconies running around the main center of the room, with piles and piles of coffins, sarcophagi, and any other corpse storage implement. Boxes were piled along the walls, some even spilling into the walking paths, and she could not even count them all at that moment. She knew that not all of them contained bodies for her to use, but if even half of them were filled, she was set to fulfill her promise.
There were other figures, however, wandering through the maze of coffins. Men and women in black robes, with pistols and pouches on their belts, wandered around. Some converged on rings of coffins, sitting on them while talking. They were not demoralized or terrified like the boy above, but there was a strange tension in the air. It was as if they were waiting for something to waltz into their sanctum and disturb their peaceful murmuring.
And that thing was Mori. She was not stupid enough not to come to that conclusion.
Looking throughout the entire room, however, one person seemed to stand out. It was a young woman sitting at the head of a table more at home in a mess hall than in a crypt, showing a small group of men and women around her a pile of books, looking very excited. Before Mori made her presence known, she counted every necromancer she could see. There were twenty six present, which meant twenty seven in total if she counted the boy above them.
Despite none of them noticing her arrival, Mori did not bother to announce herself. She walked down the stairs to the bottom floor and calmly walked through the room. At first, in the darkness, none of the necromancers noticed her, but that did not last. One man nearly pulled his gun on her as she passed, but she gave him a look that halted him in his path.
More and more noticed her until almost every necromancer was looking into the center of the room with morbid curiosity in their eyes. The murmurs died down, including the excited murmurs of one table in particular.
By the time Mori arrived at that table, every necromancer there stared at her in either awe or fear. The woman at the head of the table stared at her with pure awe, her gaze tracing down her armored figure. Mori had the urge to embarrass the woman with a very Eva-like remark, but she bit her non-existent tongue and waited for them to stop staring at her.
Once the blank stares ended, she nodded to them, “Good evening. One of yours invited me here. Are you the ‘mistress’ of the Necromancer’s Guild?” she asked the woman surrounded by books.
That woman, blinked, then grew a very large smile, “Yes I am! Ah, let me introduce myself. Oloa Dunestrider at your service,” she said, bowing down to Mori. The gesture almost made Mori flinch, but the woman continued, “Ah, I apologize, I haven’t asked how you would like to be addressed! Is there a specific way you wish to be referred to?”
Mori watched the frantic woman as she shifted on her feet. They all seemed to worry as Mori’s silence stretched into the seconds, “I would like it if you would just call me Mori. And not bow, please. I’m not a queen. I’m a servant of the gods and a necromancer. So, what’s this deal you were talking about? It sounded like you wanted to begin a partnership.”
Mori looked around as many of the necromancers flinched, looking away from the mistress of the guild. Watching them for a while, Mori turned back to the woman, who was fidgeting where she stood. After a moment, she shyly looked up at Mori, “M-May I ask a favor in return for supplying you with the bodies of the dead?”
Mori narrowed her eye-flames, making all who could see them flinch, “Depends on the favor,” Mori replied. There were many things she refused to do, and a thousand bodies to reanimate would not shake her moral compass.
The woman shyly smiled, “Would you… please let us become your death knights?” she asked, squeezing her eyes shut as if Mori’s facial expressions were dangerous to gaze upon.
Mori stared, “...What?” she muttered, “Why…? Why would you want to become my undead?” she asked, so stunned that she barely noticed the words leaving her lips.
“We have records!” the once-shy Oloa nearly shouted, startling those around her, “They tell of a man turned into a death knight by a lich and he documented his experience under her! It hinted of the knowledge that he received, but he couldn’t say anything too informative! I- I mean, we wanted to learn the knowledge and wisdom that comes with becoming a lich’s undead too, and you are the best lich to ask, since you won’t try to kill people randomly! So-”
“Hold on,” Mori cut in, “Calm down, first of all. Second of all, another lich figured out soul manipulation and didn’t get killed by the gods?” she asked, “That’s… interesting.”
Oloa, along with every other necromancer, grew confused, “Um…” Oloa began, “What’s interesting?” she asked. Mori tilted her head, looking around, and noticed that they all gave her odd looks.
Mori had a feeling, “Soul manipulation,” she said. They all gave her odd looks again and she sighed, “Yep, like I thought. The gods don’t want you to hear that. Anyway… you all want to be my death knights?” she asked.
Mori could tell that Oloa was about to say something, but one of the men sitting at the table stood, glaring at Oloa, “No, not all of us. We’re not kneeling down to a lich,” he said, turning to Mori, “No offense, but some of us are proud, and we won’t submit to anyone so drastically.” A small group of people, nine in all, shuffled closer to him as he spoke, appearing from the dark corners of the room.
Mori shrugged, “Hey, I’m not telling you to. Do what you want. But I’m here to get some bodies to use, and apparently that means I have to figure out a way to make your boss into a death knight.” Mori turned to the Oloa, a serious expression on her mask, “Listen, are you sure you want to do this? There’s no telling what kind of effects becoming an undead will have on your mind.” She knew that becoming an undead would have any number of effects on the mind. She also knew that the little nugget of knowledge left by Kel’rk’ath could have given her the knowledge about such a thing earlier, or could have even been more descriptive, “Hell, you might not even be able to raise undead or have other minions as a death knight. I don’t know. So, let me ask you again.” She paused, staring at Oloa’s stunned expression, “Do you want to become a death knight?”