“Do you know what will get you the most friends at once? Conversation. That, and storytelling. I mean, I’ve made so many friends like that I’m untouchable!”
-Last words of politician Vikolak Kilrag
*=====*
“What do you even expect to find, Mistress?” Fury asked as they walked through the narrow path, cleared of rubble.
“Dunno. Whatever is beneath the notice of a god, perhaps?” she playfully wondered.
Idle smiled toothily, “Whatever it is, it’ll be something worth a god keeping, that’s for sure.”
“Agreed,” Tisi added.
“Now that I think about it, how far is the hallway here? I was a bit occupied to think about it as we went,” Mori asked.
They all shrugged, “It went on for a while, mistress,” Mae answered, “Though, I wonder if the wyrms had the smarts to go through the walls if the rooms didn’t have any rock between them.”
“I doubt it,” Pride said, “The hallway there seemed designed to keep intruders as far away from the center as possible while they traverse it.”
“Blah blah blah, point is, we’ll be here a while. Mistress, you haven’t told us any stories yet! What do you have?” Ally asked excitedly while Mae held her head in her hand in annoyance.
“Hmm… a good story…” she mused, “Alright, how about when I first met Fara?”
“That sounds like a good one,” Idle said.
“That doesn’t sound that bad…” Mae agreed.
Mori pouted a bit, “Come on, what did you expect me to talk about? Did you really think I would be that boring?”
Mae shook her head, “No, mistress, I simply thought any story you would have a major part in would make us think you needed more assistance in mundane matters even more than we already think you do,” she bluntly stated.
Mori’s eye-flames widened as she held her upper rib cage theatrically and her face contorted into a painful grimace, “Oh, Mae! You wound me! Saying such things! I am hurt!”
They all stared at her for a moment as Jel shook her head, “M-Mistress… No one’s b-buying it.”
The lich stopped her theatrics, pouting once more, and continued walking, “Fine… but you wanted to hear about how I met Fara?” They nodded and she continued, “Alright, so the first thing I have to let you all know is that I come from a different world,” she stated with. The death knights looked at her for a moment before shrugging, “Huh, I thought that one would’ve thrown you guys for a loop.”
“Mistress,” Idle said while shaking her head, “We could have guessed that you were from a far off land. That far off land being in another world just means that we won’t be able to visit. Besides, you have told us that you don’t have your memories from the other world. I don’t think it really matters.” The other death knights offered similar perspectives, saying that it was not that important.
Mori smiled, “Well, thanks guys. I do use some of that knowledge pretty often, but I’ve been relying more and more on my Traits, species, and limited knowledge of magic to get by… Maybe I should try to do something with the whole light thing; being able to create light however I want must be useful for something…”
“Magic, science, whatever, how’d you meet Fara?” Ally interrupted, Mae slapping her on the back of the head for it.
“Ah, that. Well, it all started when I got to this world and I was alone, naked, and had no clue who I was or where I was.”
“You’re always naked, mistress,” Fury reminded her, “You have a sleeve and a cloak. That’s it.”
Mori shrugged, “Eh. Nakedness is whatever deficiency of clothing makes most others around you uncomfortable. That’s my thought on it anyway. So, since most people don’t equate a skeleton in a cloak as a naked person, then I am never really naked! I mean, think of the Insectoids. They don’t wear pants on their lower bodies, so are they naked?”
Fury shook his head, “No, nakedness is leaving the parts of a person that a society considers private out for all to see. In that sense, yeah, the insectoids are naked.”
Mori chuckled, “I’m not though. Hmm… actually, is the skeleton considered private? It seems like it shouldn’t be, but… you don’t show your skeleton to just anyone after all.”
“Teeth.”
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“Hm?” Mori asked, turning to Jel.
“T-Teeth.” she reiterated, tapping her own sharp teeth.
“Oh yeah… But anyway,” Mori began, “If an insectoid’s lower portion is not considered private, then they are not naked.”
“Okay,” Fury conceded, “But if that’s the case, then what part of them is private? Their thorax? Their-”
“Oh, gods, stop talking about naked bugs and bones and start talking about the human lady!” Ally shouted, seemingly fed up with the conversation. Mae glared daggers at the death knight while she returned them just as fierce.
After a moment, Mori shrugged, “Alright, fair enough. So, like I was saying, I was- you know what, you get the point. So I stand up, skeleton charred and smouldering, and I look around. Behind me is this giant plane, a machine that flies, and in front of me is this field of trashed Clockwork husks. So, because this was before I knew how to make undead, I started playing around with their bodies. Out of my little crafting session, I made the first version of this thing,” she said while holding up her gauntleted hand, “It was a piece of crap, but it was mine.
“So, just as I finish that, I see this plume of dust coming from the horizon. I take a closer look, and what do I see? A full four giant Clockwork monsters charging at me like a herd of bulls. Seeing that, I think to myself that if those things moved, then I might’ve been able to raise them. And I did! It was great. Then they all got killed by those damn headhunters. As I was fighting off the four of them, on the back foot, one of them got hit by something and went flying off in the other direction. I turn and see someone riding this big hunk of metal with a bunch of fancy stuff on it. She reached out for my hand and I took it. You should’ve seen the look on her face when she turns around and sees a skeleton staring back at her! It was great!” They all had a good-natured chuckle as they entered the inner part of the reliquary.
The caved-in room had been slightly hollowed out, and there was enough room for them all to stand in the middle. The orrery in the center was wrecked beyond salvaging, with every arm being torn from its stump. The walls, the beautiful and dangerous carvings, the remnants of the guardians, all of it was smashed and shattered. Even so, the wyrms had burrowed into each of the store rooms and had gathered a small pile of items, still expanding as they brought more loot.
“Alright, whatever this stuff is, I doubt Avarice will complain,” Idle said as she knelt down next to the pile. The pile was of metals, jewels, and a few small boxes, all placed haphazardly on top of each other.
Another wyrm wiggled its way out of a side room and deposited another bar of metal. “What can t-they be used for?” Jel asked as she picked up a jewel from the pile. They all mumbled about not knowing and picked up various bits and pieces to observe. There were two metals and a large number of jewels within the pile. The first metal was rosy and oddly reflective. Mori nor any of the other undead were at all knowledgeable about the intricacies of identifying metals, so they put it and the other metal, a dull green metal, to the side. The jewels, however, were much easier to understand; they must have been a part of some sort of mana, just like how the orrery spinning provided a soul prison power. They also put the gems to the side.
All that remained of the treasures the reliquary once held were three small boxes, no larger than their palms. “So… what’s in there?” Ally asked.
“I haven’t a clue,” Tisi said, narrowing her eyes to look at the boxes, “They could contain jewelry?”
“That would be enchanted,” Pride said, “I doubt a god would just leave useful jewelry around for any mortal to pick up and use without adding something to stop it from happening.”
“Well, we don’t know what’s in here, so let’s open them,” Mori said as she seized the boxes. Quickly opening them, they found the boxes to be filled not with gems, but with eyes. Each box had an eye in it, each one perfectly preserved. Mori had not a single clue as to what type of eye each was, but, if she were to guess, two would have come from lizards and the last would have come from a dog or wolf.
“Damn…” Mae murmured, “What’s with this guy and eyes?”
“I don’t know,” Mori said, closing the boxes and placing them back onto the ground, “But I think we’re done here; we can appraise everything back home, as well as pick our Traits.”
From there, it was only a matter of finding something to carry the loot in —a chest taken from one of the rooms by a wyrm— and leaving. They walked back through the hive, Mori ordering every wyrm to bring her the corpses of their former brethren to raise. By the time they reached the open skies once more, the sun was barely looking over the horizon and dusk was turning to night. All in all, Mori had gained a great deal from the venture; she had a full twenty earthshaker wyrms, five fledgelings, and three giant wyrms. On top of that, she had gained three new artefacts created for a god, as well as a small chest full of other valuables, even if some of them were eyeballs.
Their skiffs were exactly where they had left them, dispelling Mori’s fears of losing the skiffs to some passing pirates. They rode hard for Red Shale, reaching the town just as night fell. With utter confidence in her steps, Mori strode up to the Chief’s home and knocked on the door. After a moment of waiting, the door opened and the man’s familiar elderly face appeared. He stumbled back for a moment before regaining his calm, “I apologize, Lady LIchess. Wreathed by darkness, your visage is… startling.”
Mori could only wryly smile, “Not a problem. We took care of the wyrm problem for you, though there were a lot more than we were told; half a dozen fledgelings, twenty some-odd adults, and three giants. Just wanted to let you know; I’ll wring the extra chips from the guild, so don’t even think about trying to pay it yourself,” she added at the end.
The old man smiled with such beaming happiness that Mori could only copy him, “Thank you very much! We’ll remember this for as long as we draw breath!” he cried.
Mori almost wanted to make a joke of the man’s mortality, but she decided it would be in poor taste. With a final farewell, Mori brought her death knights around and began heading back to Green Oasis.
“So, where’re we keeping the wyrms?” Fury asked as he pulled up next to her.
Mori smiled, “I’ll have them circle the outer wall and wait for me to leave. How’s that?”
Fury looked conflicted for a moment before he sighed, “Mistress, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think letting them languish under the sand is the best of ideas.”
Mori thought about his statement, and his general attitude towards fighting in general, and nodded, “Alright, I get your point. I’ll see how smart they are, but if they’re too dumb to avoid attacking people, I’m keeping them at home.”
“Fair’s fair,” Fury said, melting back into formation. Just as the moon became fully visible, Mori and her death knights caught the first glimpses of light from the city on the horizon.