Torchlight crept around every corner of the twilight city. Guards were out in full force, tirelessly plumbing each and every alleyway to prevent another tragic slaughter from unfolding. Even with Drayya’s magic obscuring her appearance, Lieze didn’t want to be discovered for fear that the two of them would be taken in for questioning.

Arguments erupted from the cracked windows of terraced homes as they crossed into the southern district. The quaint and safeguarded lives of Tonberg’s citizens had been compromised, and most of them had the sense to consider evacuating the city for greener pastures. Whether Alistair would tolerate their desertion, however, was yet to be seen.

“Doesn’t it feel liberating to know that all of this chaos is the result of your efforts?” Drayya asked, “I have to admit that I never thought we’d reach this point.”

“Only a fool allows victory to tempt them into inaction.” Lieze replied, “We may have survived for this long, but I very much doubt Alistair is going to sit back and watch as we take the city. In an open battle, we’d be overwhelmed, that’s why we have to conceal both our intentions and our movements.”

Lieze’s father rose to power in the Order by spearheading a philosophy not entirely unlike her own. By placing an emphasis on strategy over raw strength of numbers, sedentary communities such as the Sovereign Cities struggled to predict Sokalar’s next move. It was that combination of spontaneity and strategic brilliance which had won him three of the country’s four cities.

“We don’t have a tenth of the manpower we had in the Order.” She continued, “Every necromancer counts - not simply for raising thralls, but carrying out other duties as well. Any leader can order men around during a battle, but the art of logistics is where the novice is separated from the master.”

“-And Tonberg is already a limping shadow of its former self.” Drayya added, “With no trade, no industry, and no territory, it’s beginning to rot from the inside-out. Only the strength of its walls provided these people with any security, and now that, too, has been proven as little more than an illusion.”

“Yes… but a cornered animal is often the most dangerous.” Lieze paused, “We’re almost at the workshop. Patrols are heavy here, so let’s spend as little time crossing the streets as we have to.”

Less than two weeks ago, Lieze was doing business on that road as if she wasn’t planning the demise of the city. Raucous cheers erupted from taverns as renewed vigour filled the hearts of warriors who were convinced that the Gildwyrm would save them from the Order as many times as it would take.

That innocence had been snuffed out with the ease of pinching a candle’s flame. Under the despotic reign of Alistair, the city was revealed for the cesspool of strife it truly was. Lieze poked her out from an alleyway to survey the rain-slick streets for patrolling royalists before she and Drayya ran towards the workshop, hiding themselves within the cover of its open-air entrance.

“Ugh…” Drayya grimaced, “That stench… even with the Dwarves gone, you can still smell that sour swill they call alcohol in the air.”

“I’m surprised they were forced to leave at all.” Lieze could just about make out the workshop’s features. Great and incomprehensible engines sat dormant in the dark, eager to be fed fire and steel once more, “So this is a Dwarven forge… I can’t imagine how many of the army’s weapons were wrought in this one room.”

“How very like the Church.” Drayya replied, “-To reward the unconditional support of the best nonhuman smiths in the world with a swift boot up the arse. All for the sake of maintaining ‘racial purity’.”

“It doesn’t seem like they were given much notice, either…” Lieze muttered, examining a half-forged lump of cold steel on a nearby anvil, “We should look around. Keep an eye out for barrels or pouches - and for the love of all that’s good, please don’t-”

“Look, Lieze!”

Suddenly possessed with greed, Drayya leaped over to an alcove near the back of the shop with a handful of clear, beautifully-cut crystals resting on a shelf. She handled the gem as if it was the most priceless thing in the world, showing it off to Lieze with the tenderness of a child cradling some innocent creature they’d captured in the woods.

“Diamonds!” Her smile was genuine - perhaps the very first completely unrelated to necromancy.

Lieze picked a specimen out of her palm without a word, sending the girl into a disappointed huff. She held the gemstone as close to one eye as possible. The lightest shade of salmon-pink could be seen filtering through the translucent stone. She held it between two fingers and shoved it into Drayya’s field of view with a sigh.

“Quartz.” She corrected, “No matter how acquainted they are with treasures of the deep earth, do you really think they’d leave pure diamonds sitting on their worktops?”

“Quartz!?” Drayya exclaimed, “...You could make a fortune telling people these are diamonds.”

“Unfortunately, jewellery isn’t the vogue at the moment. All these people care about now are bread and water.” She replied, “We aren’t here for gems, anyway, much as I’m sure you would like to throw away your life in the Order to become an appraiser.”

“You joke, but…” Drayya shrugged her shoulders, “-Were I a life-cursed commoner, perhaps that would have been the case. Although, I’m more interested in hearing what you would be doing if you weren’t the daughter of an omnicidal Lich.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“A baker?”

“A bak- pfft!” Losing herself to a wave of laughter, Drayya lifted a hand to cover her shameless grin, “Lieze the baker… oh, the joys…”

“What’s so funny about that?” She blinked.

“If I must be honest, I can’t imagine you being anyone else but who you already are, Lieze.” Rubbing a tear from her eye, Drayya’s reply was peppered with stifled giggles, “Anything less than a crusader against all things living, and… well - you just wouldn’t be Lieze anymore, would you?”

Who was Lieze?

In Drayya’s eyes, she was less than human - expressed in the most pleasant manner possible. In any other persuasion, pursuing any other life, she would no longer be ‘Lieze’. It only struck her then that she had only delved into such introspection a handful of occasions throughout her entire life. The more she thought about it, the more Drayya’s surface-level ‘insult’ transformed into an undeniable truth. She really wouldn’t be ‘Lieze’ if she was anyone less than herself.

“I suppose so.” In the world beyond her thoughts, only a second had passed. Next to the shelf upon which the welts of quartz had been stored, two barrels were tucked into a dark corner of the workshop. Drayya followed her gaze towards the alcove before wandering over and kneeling down to take a look at the carefully-painted lettering on the curvature.

“Dwarvish… I think.” She tilted her head, “Do you know any?”

“Not enough.” Lieze replied, “Check what’s inside.”

When she grasped the handle and yanked, the lid came off with a pop, and an acrid scent flooded the room. Within the barrel was a crumbling hilltop of black powder, mundane at a glance but hiding ferocious potential behind its plain appearance. Drayya was all at once conscious of the substance, keeping her hands free from the rim.

“How very lucky…” She blinked, “I don’t suppose your god-given power had a hand in locating this treasure?”

“I was only told there was black powder somewhere in the city.” Lieze replied, “What better place to find it than a Dwarven workshop?”

“Well - if it leads us to victory, then I won’t complain.” She gazed into the barrel, “...I wonder what they were planning to do with all of this? If they wanted to blow a guardhouse up, wouldn’t they have done it on their way out of the city?”

“Don’t you recall our lessons in the archives?” Lieze folded her arms, “Within the northern mountains, black powder is as much a daily necessity as food and water. It’s not just a tool for destruction. The Dwarves have pioneered many uses for it, including a new kind of handheld weapon which launches metallic projectiles at high speeds.”

“Those maniacs… as if good-old-fashioned crossbows will ever go out of style.” Standing to her feet, she faced Lieze with a tired expression, “Well… finding them is one thing, but moving them is another. How do you plan on bringing them back to the eastern district?”

“Carry them?” Lieze answered plainly.

“Carr- alright. Okay.” Standing aside, she gestured towards a barrel, “Go on, then. Lift it.”

She didn’t need to. The point had been made.

“Then we’ll roll them.” Lieze suggested.

“That would be simpler, yes, but it would also make a lot of noise.” Drayya argued, “-And being discovered would not bode well for our continued survival.”

“We could move them during the day.”

“-Attracting plenty of attention in the process.”

“Move them into a wagon, then.”

“-And get stopped by some guards on the way back to the eastern district?”

“Okay, Drayya.” Lieze sighed, hands on her hips, “Why don’t we light a match right now and allow ourselves to be consumed in a glorious fireball? That way, the guards would never catch us in the act.”

A beat passed in purest silence.

“...Right. Rolling it is.” Drayya nodded.

And so, the two necromancers spent an hour and a half mastering the art of rolling barrels silently through the patrolled streets of Tonberg, taking great care to watch for the distinctive torchlight of passing guards before tumbling their way across deserted, rain-soaked streets and into the safety of nearby alleyways.

“Never thought I would be doing this when Master Sokalar entrusted me with weakening the city…” Drayya lamented, “...But the payoff is going to be worth all this effort.”

“It sounds like you already have a target in mind.” Lieze replied.

“I’ll need to perform some reconnaissance, but yes. All in good time, Lieze.”

A wave of relief washed over the two as they crossed into the forbidden reaches of the eastern district, having completed their objective without being seen or accidentally causing a catastrophic explosion. Marché awaited their arrival at the cemetery with bated breath, half-surprised to see that the two of them had experienced even a fraction of success. He held out a single, rain-soaked foot to stop one of the barrels as it rolled towards him.

“...Black powder?” He already knew the answer to that query, but longed to hear it spoken by another.

“Indeed.” Lieze answered, “Keep it inside a cellar, or another place where it won’t get hot or wet.”

“Another pair of guards came by while you were gone.” He reported, “They’re dead now, but we won’t be able to catch every single one that comes by.”

“The work you’ve been doing to delay a response from Alistair is satisfactory.” She replied, “Focus on reinforcing our army before anything else. Have our alchemy supplies been moved yet?”

“No, but they’ll be here in the next half-hour, I’d wager.” Marché looked in the direction of the eastern gate as if he expected to see a wagon travelling down the road, “Some of the cultists are wondering what our plan is for taking the northern district.”

“They’ll have a plan by tomorrow morning, and we’ll be marching on the district within the next few days.” She assured, “It’s just a matter of biding our time and taking advantage of opportunities whenever they appear.”

“Lieze.” Drayya propped up her own barrel before joining the conversation, “If your necromancy skills are comparable to my own, then it would be worthwhile to raise a few of these corpses ourselves.”

“That’s true.” She said, “Let’s get to it. Any corpses we end up wasting will only exaggerate the city’s advantage in numbers.”