“I do-”
“Guild mistress, please,” the standing man cut in, “We can’t lose another leader so soon. We need time to stabilize, to grow back after…” The man stilled, looking down with a downcast expression. The other necromancers did the same, bitterness in all of their eyes.
Mori looked between the downcast necromancers, sighed, and took a seat at the table, “One of you needs to tell me what happened to Gradel. It sounds… big. And important. So just what the hell happened?”
They all glanced at her, then between each other, then they all fixed their gazes on Oloa, “He… We have been fighting all this time. Not many know it, but the Clockworks have dug far, far further than simply being used as sappers. They have tried repeatedly to breach the walls through tunnels, but we’ve been stopping them. They have stopped lately, but it was not soon enough to stop the Guild master from being killed. Him, along with about half of our number, were slaughtered. We burned their bodies, so they will not be used as undead by the desperate.
“We’ve lost so much lately… But, even so, I believe that this is the best decision. So… why don’t you want to follow me on this?” she asked the man, “This is the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to learn what was once lost, what we were never meant to know! How could you let your pride get in the way of that? Besides, Mori is not a cruel mistress. Are you?”
Mori blinked her eye-flames, “No? My undead are like my children, though it would be like adopting you guys if you were to become my death knights. But, first of all, I have to ask the gods. It’s… complicated. Second of all, I need to ask my other death knights. I don’t want infighting between my undead. Third of all, you need to accept the fact that I have no idea what could happen to you guys. So, who wants to do the same as her?” she asked, looking around.
Oloa, of course, stepped forward. In addition to her, almost every other necromancer not with the first man followed, leaving a pair of confused insectoids standing across from the man’s group. That man sighed, “I won’t make you follow me, but please just hear me out-”
“They did and they chose to do this,” Oloa cut in, “Flamve, we knew you for a long time. We understand your point of view, and we don’t hate you for it. The roads of our lives are simply taking us in a different direction.” She stepped toward the man and gave him a hug. It was a hug Mori pegged as more intimate than friends, but in the same way a brother and sister love each other, “Take your own path. I, and they, will take ours.” She pulled away, giving the man and his group a smile.
The man, Flamve, looked down. He then wordlessly began to walk away. He quickly gathered his things from a box, then left with his group in tow. The insectoid couple looked between Mori and the retreating Flamve, then wordlessly followed, taking a bundle of things from a corner on their way out. As the insectoids left, Mori sighed, “Looks like you’re all going to follow me. I guess. So, let’s get down to business.”
The necromancers glanced between them, then at Mori, with confused expressions on their faces. She smiled. She had work to do, and she would not waste the help of a group of new followers.
*=====*
Caleb glanced towards Mark as the latter man glanced around nervously, “Mark, what the hell are you doing?” he asked, “You’ve been acting like a rabbit in the middle of an empty field for the last ten minutes.”
Mark glared at Caleb, then deflated, “I’m… nervous.”
“No… really? I thought you were just hopped up on happy pills!” Caleb replied, a mock shocked expression on his face. Mark only glared weakly, “Yeah, I get it. But, think about it. We’ll be able to talk to Eva soon enough.” Caleb's words did not seem to soothe Mark, but the pair walked through the hallways of the massive moving fortress nevertheless.
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Soon enough, they reached a featureless double door, the one that Aerolat directed them to. Behind the door, they could hear the low murmuring of a quiet conversation. Mark opened the door quietly, which proved to be quite necessary.
Behind the door, they found a group of odd people and creatures, all relaxing around tables and on couches. Most were human-like, but a couple were not. One was a scale-covered monster with its head rested on the table in front of it. Another was not even bipedal, instead being a floating, single-eyed, two armed creature with eye stalks protruding from its head.
As the two normal humans entered, almost every one of the odd congregation glanced their way, soon turning away upon seeing them. Only one person did not turn away, a woman with looks that Caleb guessed would have made many normal people fall in love. The woman looked at them, then down at something on her lap, then beckoned them closer. Mark and Caleb, still feeling a bit out of place, carefully made their way over to the woman. Before they reached her, though, Mark stopped in his tracks, staring at the lady’s lap. Caleb gazed down at her lap, only to see Eva sleeping there, a serene expression on her face.
Mark almost began to sprint over to the pair before Caleb yanked on his arm. The lovestruck man turned with a glare, to which Caleb only had to point to the sleeping Eva for Mark to understand his point. Mark, with a regretful expression, slowed and trudged up to the woman letting Eva sleep on her lap, “So… You’re Desire, right?” he asked, “Or… are you someone else?”
“I’m Desire,” Desire chuckled quietly, “She’s really tired. We’ve been traveling for a while and she has been helping out around here, so she needs her sleep. So… What now?” she asked.
Mark pursed his lips, “I… don’t know… I wanted to talk to her-”
“More like yell at her,” Caleb remarked, earning a glare from Mark, “What? You wanted to. You were mad.”
“I… am,” Mark replied, “I was worried about her…”
Desire smiled, “I understand that. But… even if it was pretty foolhardy, she did it out of love. I know what I agreed to when I first began to love Eva, including her… romantic tendencies. She’s got too big of a heart for only one person to share; there’ll be enough for both of us,” she said, smiling.
Mark sighed, nodding, “Yeah, you’re right.” He sat down beside Desire, leaning down to give a small kiss to Eva, “She’s too loving for one person to have it all…”
Caleb looked between them, with a sigh, “Are you two going to stay like that?” he asked. They simply smiled at him, nodding. Caleb shook his head, “Alright, then. I’ll go… strike up a conversation with… someone else.”
Caleb looked around at the sedate group of undead and decided to find the one outlier in the group. He walked up to the table where the floating eyeball hovered in front of and pulled up a chair, sitting down. The eye looked towards him, “Hello,” he said, “You’re one of the earthborn, aren’t you? Ah, I’m Crave, if you were wondering. I look a bit different from before, so…”
“How did that happen, by the way? You know, that?” he remarked, gesturing to Crave’s eyeball body, “I can’t imagine that it’s normal for undead to suddenly fundamentally change forms.”
Crave smiled with his weird elongated mouth, “You have no idea,” he said, “We actually have different forms. It has to do with the dragon mana that reacted with the names the mistress gave us and… I’m still trying to figure it out, honestly, but I think I am getting close.”
Caleb nodded slowly, “I… have not idea what in the hell you just said. Also, what do you mean by ‘dragon?’ Did you guys…”
“Yes,” Crave chuckled, which was a bid disturbing considering his large maw, “We are dragons now. We are simply in our small forms. We also have medium forms that are our old bodies, and we have our massive dragon forms. If I am being honest, there is so much about our powers that we do not know that I would need to ask another dragon about…”
“So why don’t you?” Caleb asked, much to Crave’s surprise, “Why don’t you just go find the dragons and ask them? Sure, you’re an undead and not the exact same as they are, but it’s not like they’ll just turn you down for information just because of that. I think, anyway. I’m not entirely sure, but that’s another reason to find one and ask.”
Crave hummed in thought, “I… agree. Alright, let’s go,” he said, grabbing Caleb’s arm and dragging him to the door.
In spite of his original thought, Crave was strong. Much more so than his spindly arms would have suggested, “Umm… Do I need to come along?” he asked.
“Yes. You suggested it,” Crave replied. Caleb sighed, nodding as Crave dragged him out of the massive fortress. He did not expect to be in the company of a flying eyeball on a quest to ask dragons how their powers work, but he stopped being really surprised when he was dropped into a world with magic and gods and a system.