-Necromancer-

[Magic users who place a focus on

resurrection magic, willing to commit a

Fundamental Sin in order to bring people back to life.]

Inside the tower, the air felt noticeably different. I had noticed the air got more tense gradually as we approached the building, but getting inside hit me with a wave of intensity I’d never felt before. I could feel the corruption in the Aether without even trying. I looked around at my party members, to see if it was just me. Everyone showed some level of discomfort, aside from Kared, who stood there confidently and imposingly as usual. Of the party, Oroske seemed to be having the hardest time. He had his hand pressing against his head, as though he had an awful headache. After a moment he rolled his head on his neck and spoke, “Alright, let’s do this. We’ll stick to the plan we discussed. Kared, Kuro, and I will go left, and meet up with you two at the stairwell on the other side. Send all Restless to the Aetherial Realm where they belong. On the third floor where it opens up to the large atrium, Kared and I will descend to the bottom and distract the Necromancer, while the rest of you sweep the upper balconies for Restless. Once you finish, Kared and I will switch with Kuro and Jarou, and grant them an opportunity to do combat with the Necromancer.”

Everyone nodded, and we broke. Kared and Oroske both summoned weapons from their Demon Sheaths, so I followed suit. They both used scythes, Oroske’s was the same simple one I’d seen him use a few times in sparring and such. Kared’s on the other hand seemed much more personalized. The handle had a much more pronounced curve to it towards the bottom, and the blade had large serrations, and was crimson red in color. The two of them wielded them with a confidence I still lacked, even with a sword. With a scythe, though, my confidence was even lower, and as such I opted to stick to my sword.

The hallway was a simple circle, with pretty barren features. The floor was a short-haired grey carpet that was softer than hardwood, if only barely. I wondered if they had always looked like this, but the walls were a soft, grey-green color, broken up by the occasional door or window, with wooden trusses extending to the ceiling framing each section of wall. While it was in relatively good shape, the fact the building was classified as ruins made itself apparent every now and then. Busted windows and doors, some wooden trusses were warped or broken, and even the occasional hole in the walls and floors.

It wasn’t long before we encountered our first Restless. A ghostly figure of a young man. It had a chain around it that wasn’t present with the Restless I fought during my training hunt, that seemed to lead away, but faded out as it got further away. “A summoned Restless, then, huh?” Oroske muttered as he launched himself forward, with an impressive amount of spin, and slashed through it with his scythe. The Restless crumbled, disintegrating into a fine dust, before disappearing completely. After landing, Oroske slid out of his spin, and continued running without pause. “Kared and I will take care of the ones on higher floors, so save your scrolls for the lower floors, Kuro,” he instructed. I was a little disappointed, I quite would have liked some actual experience fighting alongside the two. Though, I had to admit, it was taking almost everything I had just to keep up with them.

We saw one more Restless on that floor. Unlike the previous one, this one managed to get off a couple attacks before Kared eliminated it. It shot out several spikes of condensed Aether, barely visible to the naked eye. I instinctively avoided them, barely dodging the two or three that made it to me. Good thing too, as when the spikes hit the wall behind us, they not only pierced deep into them, but practically exploded, leaving behind holes much bigger than the spears themselves. I thought Kared was about to just run past and ignore it, but it seemed she shared our mutual mentor’s knack for flair. She was mid-stride when she was side by side with it, carrying her scythe in a way that the blade went behind her back. She quickly rotated it, so the blade caught on the Restless’s body, and used it to spin around the Restless. She let go when she was in front of it again, basically flying a short distance, before her feet seemed to catch on thin air, and she launched herself with a jump, and slashed past it, eliminating it easily.

It seemed we took the longer of the two ways, as Nadred and Jarou were waiting for us at the stairwell. “Took you long enough,” Nadred joked, as he grabbed onto the handrail for the stairs, and jumped down to the lower floor. One by one we followed suit. “That’s always so fun, we would never get to do that in other situations,” Jarou commented with a laugh, with nary a pause in his step.

There were stairs that led further down there, but I suppose for the sake of clearing out as many Restless as possible, we split up once again. Same groups, same directions. The halls were nearly identical to the previous floor’s, but in greater disrepair.

We encountered three Restless on this floor, and once again Oroske and Kared took care of them.

The first one was ingloriously eliminated by Kared, and the last two were in sight by then, staying near each other. Those two were taken out in a flashy team-attack between my senior Hunters, despite the fact I was sure either of them could easily eliminate them both on their own. Kared’s attitude toward battle starkly contrasted the advice she gave me earlier in the day, she seemed to be enjoying herself and not taking it very seriously at all. The attack had Oroske launch Kared forward with a burst of very powerful sentem. Just before she went flying, the two linked the blades of their scythes, locking them in place. Oroske held on tightly as he got pulled along by Kared. Once she was near striking distance, she spun her scythe in her hands, flipping the blade and letting Oroske’s loose. She gave herself some spin, I spied her using sentem to help with speed and force, and slashed through the Restless on the right. After being loosed, Oroske followed suit, spinning himself vertically, in contrast to Kared’s horizontal spin, and cut the Restless in half from top to bottom. As with the previous one, despite exaggerated movements and ‘charge up’ times, I didn’t even slow down and kept near perfect pace with them, and they kept running as soon as they landed.

I was impressed, yet somewhat saddened by the apparent gap between me and them in skill. Not only did they eliminate the Restless quickly and efficiently, their teamwork was flawless. I felt as though I had to improve a lot, so that I can one day measure up to Oroske’s past apprentices, and maybe someday I’d be able to hold my own against him going all out.

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Not long after, we ran into Nadred and Jarou once again next to the stairwell, arriving at the same time as us. Nadred had a bit of blood dripping from a cut on his cheek, and explained, “One of them got me a little bit. Had four of them attack at once.”

“Ah well that’s understandable,” Oroske said as he jumped over the railing to quickly reach the next floor, the rest of us following along.

The stairs continued down from there, presumably all the way to the ground floor. At the landing for the stairs was another one of the identical hallways, and directly in front was a large set of double doors, made from heavy, dark wood. Oroske spared no time to admire the designs engraved on the door, and busted them open. He signaled for Jarou, Nadred, and I to stay behind, and for Kared to follow. He charged out, and jumped over the guardrail revealed behind the door, Kared jumping out right after him.

We ran up to the guardrail soon enough to see them still airborne. We were in the large atrium we were shown on the map; 3 floors of bookshelves, with a narrow walkway separating the floors. The center was open on the upper floors, and the bottom was littered with tall, standalone bookshelves. There were also tables and chairs, but they’d all been pushed off to the side and were in no state for you to sit and read. And in the center of the room, was a figure wearing the same robes the students we encountered earlier were wearing, standing in the center of a circle with very intricate designs, with two triangles overlapping each other to make a six-pointed star. The rest of the designs were very finely detailed, but I couldn’t make out what any of them were. At each point of the star, there were small containers with various items in them, the only ones I could identify were crystals similar to the ones Oroske showed me in the stove at home.

The figure, who I identified as our target, the Necromancer, looked up from what they were doing as Oroske and Kared descended towards him rapidly. They were posed to attack as soon as they reached striking distance, an advantageous opening move. However, they were quickly stopped by the Necromancer, who put up a large barrier before they could get even close to striking. Instead, they tried to cut through the barrier, which gave a large amount of resistance before finally shattering like glass. They then began chasing after the Necromancer, clearly holding back, trying not to kill him immediately.

“Look alive!” Nadred called to me and Jarou, who was spectating the battle below with me. I looked over to him, and saw a small group of three Restless approaching us quickly. “Grab your scrolls! There’s a few ways to use them; I recommend either channeling the ‘ari’ or ‘fer’ commands. If you use fer you may be able to eliminate multiple with a single scroll, as it lasts roughly 30 seconds.” He quickly instructed as we ran to engage our targets. He gave a signal which I interpreted to mean he would take the center Restless, Jarou the right, and I the left.

I couldn’t see much of how they fared, or the methods they employed for eliminating their respective Restless, but I pulled out my first scroll, and did as I was taught. I held the command ari in my mind, as I channeled Aether into the parchment. It didn’t activate immediately, which I hadn’t expected, and it granted the Restless an opportunity to attack. It swung at me with a narrow blade of concentrated Aether, similar to the spear I narrowly dodged earlier. The similarities don’t end there, as I was able to duck under the swing, making it through without a scratch. “Ari!” I yelled the command in order to give it more concrete form. The scroll glowed as it seemingly transformed into a small blade that ripped right through the Restless’s body.

As the figure dissipated into a fine mist, my companions made sure I was okay. I simply nodded, and we began moving again. We encountered two other groups of Restless on that floor, the first of which had two Restless, and the other had four. In the case of the group of four, Nadred simply took out two in a single, fluid motion with his scythe, while Jarou and I simply expended a scroll each.

Between our encounters, I couldn’t help but spectate Oroske and Kared’s battle against the Necromancer. It was difficult to make out specifically what they were doing, but it seemed like the Necromancer was struggling to hold up against them. But I could tell even then the duo were holding back quite a bit.

Having swept the third floor completely, it was time to descend to the next floor. Rather than directing us to the stairs, Nadred merely bid us to follow him. He grabbed onto the guardrail, and flipped himself under it, landing on the walkway for the floor below. Apparently there were Restless waiting there, since when I followed suit - after a moment to calm myself and prepare for the jump - I saw the tell-tale mist of Restless that had been hit with Return to Dust.

After Jarou landed following my own arrival, we began our sweep of the second floor balcony. There were several more Restless on this floor, and in larger groups too. The largest of which, the second to last group we cleared, had seven Restless.

While the west went down fairly easily, that group posed a bit of a challenge. Nadred handled three of them, and Jarou and I each took two. After Nadred took the vanguard and eliminated the first one, the rest went on an aggressive offense. The one immediately behind the one Nadred eliminated slashed out at him, narrowly missing his face. The one behind that however, thrust forward with a spear-like attack, and pierced into his shoulder. He barreled through, knocking the two of them back. Meanwhile, Jarou and I both opted to use fer instead of ari with our scrolls, coating our weapons with the spell. I didn’t catch what Jarou did, but I know he made it through successfully without injury. I, on the other hand, was tripped by my second Restless right after I eliminated the first. Landing square on my back, the faceless figure towered over me. Without missing a beat it shot out a spear towards my face, which I narrowly dodged, nicking my ear. From the ground, I lifted my legs up, and kicked out to jump back to my feet. I slashed at the Restless, but alas, the effect of Return to Dust had expired, as the blade cut through, but did not cause it to shed blood nor cause the body to dissipate. It sent out another spear, which clipped my side and put a small hole in my cloak. I brought out another scroll, and commanded it with ari, once more destroying the spirit.

After the floor was cleared, we jumped down once again, this time to the ground level. “Alright boys, get in there and show that Necromancer what you’re made of!” Nadred exclaimed as he pushed us onward, “Kared, Oroske, time to switch out!”

As we approached, our comrades retreated. The Necromancer cried out in a scream of rage. His appearance seemed different than when I had observed him from above. His hair seemed wilder, sticking up all over the place, and there was a dark, menacing aura surrounding him. I hadn’t seen his eyes from above, but I could see now that there was no longer any white in his eyes, nor any color. Instead, his eyes seemed to be glossy black orbs.

The final encounter of the night was at hand, and it would put mine and Jarou’s combat abilities to the test.