Sumire was right. The twin peaks were utterly magnificent.

The necromancer Kezko regaled Momo—and a reluctant but terrified Chevri—with his life's woes as Momo replicated the mountains’ majesty on her blank notebook page. By the end of the hour, both her mind and body were considerably relaxed, all but sinking into the soil.

She had chosen to crosshatch shadows up and down the mountainside, a particularly draining method of shading, leaving her hand shaking with exhaustion; but it was a pleasant sort of exhaustion. The kind that only came from using one’s body to create beauty. She hadn’t experienced that sort of tiredness in a long, long time. Maybe since…

She blushed.

“So, you were stuck in time paralysis right at the peak of the war?” she asked, clasping the notebook shut as she diverted her mind from specific places. “That’s unfortunate timing.”

“Yes. My body, as far as I can tell, has not aged a day since,” he said, inspecting his hands. “I still have this angry red blister that I had years ago. But anyway, that’s not important. What is important is that you tell me posthaste—who did win the Dark Calamity in the end? It had to have been us, if a necromancer like you is holding the throne.”

Momo frowned guiltily. That was a safe assumption, but it naively assumed that this universe was dictated by rational logic. It was not.

“Sorry, but… no. As far as I understand it, the necromancers lost the war in the final stretch. Sera rushed in too early, eager to show off some idea of hers and make Morgana proud.”

To her surprise, Kezko lit up, grinning.

“Oh, now that is just delightful,” he giggled. “Valerica must have been so pissed off. Oh, I am truly sorry that I missed that. The breakup must have been cataclysmic.”

“I imagine it was,” Momo muttered. She was still coming to peace with the fact that the two ever had anything going on between them. “But yeah, they lost, the holy government killed almost all the necromancers, and forced the surviving ones into hiding. Valerica started a cult called Morgana’s Dawn, with the mission to rebuild the necromantic front against Kyros, and then she summoned me from Earth under the delusion that I was her chosen one, or something. I’m still not clear on what circumstances she made that decision. I’m guessing she was on a post-breakup bender.”

“I see,” he nodded, resting his head on his sewn-up knuckles. “And it seemed you did just fine in that role, if I am to believe you about being queen. You turned a world that was completely against necromancers into one where a Nether Demon has become royalty. I must say, you are either a delusional liar, or a very impressive young lady.”

Momo blushed, studying the damp ground. It wasn't often she told her story from the very beginning to someone who was so completely uninvolved. And, really, he wasn’t wrong—it was kind of astounding, looking back.

She could hardly believe it was her at the center of it all.

“It sounds a lot easier when I summarize it in two sentences,” she mumbled.

“You’re telling me. I’ve been gone for decades, and now I’m up to speed in under sixty minutes. As it turns out, the world just kept on moving without me. How insignificant that makes one feel.”

“No, no, you shouldn’t feel that way—”

He grinned. “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t. It was out of my control. And now that I’ve returned, I intend to make myself very significant.”

Kezko snapped his fingers. The wind rushed by as the black wyrm woke from its dormancy, standing tall and shaking like a dog in the grass. It roared, and black magic spewed out of its maw, turning the crisp air into smog; Momo pinched her nose. Chevri screamed.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Momo knew she could attempt to fight the wyrm using her new sword techniques, but, first of all, the animal wasn’t in its right mind, and second, all that crosshatching had made her arm limp.

Hopefully I’ve gained enough credibility with this semi-lucid necromancer to paint him down a different path.

One that involved less murdering of helpless mountain civilians.

But first, she had to satiate her curiosity.

“Kezko,” she said. “Before you, um, do anything—can I ask you a question?”

He paused, his wolfish grin slipping. “Yes. What?”

“How are you controlling them? The wyrms?”

She pointed her small finger at the gangly beast.

“I’m just curious. I used to be a Corrupted Druid, and that let me tame and summon beasts, but these don’t seem to be tamed or summoned. You said they’re possessed?”

He lit up. “Ah, so this is why you’re so successful. You possess a curious mind.”

He thrust his hand into the pocket of his robe, clawing around for something before re-emerging with a white-blue gemstone. A dark vapor swirled inside the center of the gemstone. She recognized the substance immediately. It was trapped, distilled Nether.

“I control them using a mana gem,” he explained, glowing. “I perform a light bit of surgery to insert one into their neck, and then it connects to the one in mine.”

He tugged down the black cloth wrap around his neck, exposing taut skin brimming with stitches. Buried in the skin of his nape was an identical gemstone.

Huh. So that explains why his skin looks like an abandoned knitting project.

“I tie our Nether together, intertwining our souls. It allows me to cast spells through their lips without digging into my own mana pool. It’s like pulling at puppet strings.”

As he explained, Momo’s curiosity grew, her eyes fixated on the gemstone. Noticing her obsession, he offered it to her. She took it into her hand gratefully.

You have acquired a Mana Gem!

To use this gem, you must insert it into something with latent mana of its own.

Momo’s fingers curled around it protectively, as if she had just happened upon something priceless. Not in the monetary sense, but in a far superior way—in a way that triggered an important dormant memory.

She slipped back in time, and the words of Morganium’s chief medic rang in her subconscious, from that day she awoke in the medical tent, her body as heavy as titanium.

“We consulted the System Medic about these swords of yours, and we have determined that they are versatile weapons. They have magical power in their own right.”

Her chest tightened. Magical power in their own right.

I remember the medic talking about turning the rapiers into self-casting devices. How that would take a certain level of crafting expertise…

Kezko gave her a concerned look.

“Are you suffering from altitude sickness? You look quite suddenly pale.”

Momo ignored him, her eyes pinning him with an intensity.

“I–I have another question,” she said, and unsheathed her two rapiers. They dazzled black in the light, and Kezko’s lips drew open in surprise. “Apparently, my swords have magical power of their own. Something like their own inherent mana pool. If you were to insert mana gems into these, what would happen? Would they be able to cast spells without using my own mana?”

He processed her rush of words, then offered a hand politely toward her.

“May I?”

She was reticent. These swords were all she had. The last bit of power in her possession.

But they were also hers. Their power was tied to her own. If anyone else tried to use them, it’d be like lugging around a knockoff lightsaber. At least, that’s what Viktor had told her. He had spent many days inspecting them in his laboratory, but the swords refused to react to any of his instruments. Any material or substance he had tried to coat them with would melt right off.

“I won’t do anything to them without asking,” he said, but it was supplemented by a deranged giggle. “I’m a Dark Artificer, not a maniac. Hah. Or should I say, I’m Kezko, not Valerica.”

An Artificer. Momo brightened, her heart rabbiting in her chest. That was a crafting class, and a necromancer dual-class at that. None of the crafters in Morganium had that sort of speciality. She had planned on trying to take levels in it when she turned home, hoping to exchange Artist for some sort of Sword Technician, but this—this might as well have been a miraculous shortcut.

If this works, I’m one step closer to getting my powers back.

She placed the hilt of the sword in his hand. It danced with black electricity as he curled his fingers around it, a wide, delighted grin growing on his face.

“Oh yes,” he said, the pupil of his prosthetic eye tripling in size. “I can work with this.”