Necromancer and Co., Book 3: The Underearth
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Chapter 1: A Not So Bottomless Pit
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[Alen]
For Alen, teleportation was an exciting concept. Being able to teleport anywhere he wanted whenever he wanted was an extremely enticing offer. Hell, for the sake of laziness, he might’ve even taken it over Necromancy under less… violent circumstances. Often, he would wonder what teleportation would feel like. Would it be instantaneous? Would he feel like retching from motion sickness after warping? Or would he mess up and end up in a place he had no idea how to get out of? Possibly underground? Falling from the sky?
Well, his questions were answered by the violent winds that roared past his ears in a deafening whisper. The answer was that all four of his assumptions were correct. Yes, it was instantaneous, yes, his stomach felt like a freshly shaken bottle of soda, and yes, he was in a place he had no idea how to get out of. Presumably underground.
He was also falling. Again.
“Alen!” Someone shouted his name, the tired apathy in his mana-exhausted mind cleared. He saw the large, cylindrical tunnel that led straight downwards, its walls covered in glowing blue crystals that blurred past his vision like a speeding train and suddenly, a single thought sprang into his head:
He was absolutely fucked.
“Alen!” Someone grabbed his shoulder from behind and slapped him across the face. His blank eyes cleared, and Lynn came into view, pointing at the falling form of Roland just a distance away. “Grab him! We need to find a way to stop this fall before we become red puddles in wherever this pit ends!”
“What if it’s bottomless?” said Alen, horrified.
“We can think about that after we stop falling!”
“Help me!” Roland screamed at them, pale as a ghost as he flailed about in the air. Alen pushed away Lynn’s hair that was whipping about in front of his face and pointed his arm at Roland. With a grunt of effort, his mana churned and shot a pole of keratin out from his robe. The warrior grabbed onto it and frantically pulled himself closer.
“Whoa, slow down before you break the pole! Hey! Your grip’s too strong! I haven’t reinforced this thing with magic yet. Wait, no, are you scared of fucking heights!?” Alen hurriedly mended the pole where it was cracked, terrified at Roland’s rapidly approaching pale face. Lynn took his hand and stretched her arms out, reaching out to Roland.
“Grab on!” She shouted. Roland grit his teeth and pulled himself forward in a sudden burst, his hand clasping around hers. The pole he was on disintegrated to dust. He glared at Alen. “My dad threw me off the back of a griffon as a kid,” Roland lamented, shuddering at the memory.
A plume of cloth exploded out of the back of Alen’s robes, forming something of a parachute to slow their fall. The ends holding it together snapped at their combined weight. “Shit!” Alen cursed, looking up at Lynn. “My mana’s too low to create a parachute sturdy enough to stop the fall at this speed! Slow us down!”
She grit her teeth, then pulled Roland in further. Her right hand gripped the bracer attached to her left arm tightly, and with a crunch, a flicker of light leaked from the rifts and cracks that spread across the surface of the Windstone on her bracer. Sweat formed on her forehead, and with a final snap, the Windstone shattered into a million pieces.
“Hold on!” she shouted, and then, instead of being swept upwards by the wind battering against their faces, the dust formed from the shattered gem churned around them like a whirlpool. The wind strengthened, but it was no longer blowing past them—it was twisting and whirling and roaring around their forms. The images of walls and glowing gems that swept past them in a blur slowed to manageable levels, indicating the lowered speed of their descent.
“Make whatever it is you’re making now! I can’t sustain this for long!” Lynn shouted, her arms spread out and beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Alen cursed under his breath, his mind throbbing in pain behind his bloodshot eyes with every mana-influenced edit he made to the AutoBone parachute.
Suddenly, the white haired elf groaned in pain, and just like that, the wind sweeping all around them scattered away.
They began to accelerate once again.
Roland let out an uncharacteristic shout of horror, pointing to something below them. Alen’s eyes followed his finger. His face paled. The tunnel downwards had begun to twist and curve, and if they didn’t do anything soon, they really would turn into red stains that decorated the winding walls below. Alen pulled on his magic, and once again, a parachute billowed out from the back of his robes. His vision darkened for a moment as a sledgehammer seemed to pound against his ability to stay conscious. The keratin cloth groaned from the strain, but every second it gave them before they hit the stone was precious.
Roland watched the ground approaching them at rapid speeds and gritted his teeth. He pulled his arm down under them and angled his shield. It simmered with a gray glow. The ground was approaching. Closer. Closer. Closer—
Bang! The shield slammed into the stone, and Roland pulled his arm away just in time to stamp his feet against the shield’s metal frame. The steel screeched against the stone, and sparks sprayed into the darkness of the cavern like fireworks. Roland struggled to keep his balance. Alen felt himself fall, and a hand pulled him back and threw him over its owner’s shoulder; Roland had saved him. Lynn was right behind him, ice at her feet to keep her planted on his shield.
Alen reached out for a ledge, and despite the pain of his brain being beaten like a drum, a hook of keratin exploded out from his sleeve, but the lack of mana to reinforce it caused it to shatter against the wall. He grit his teeth through bloodshot eyes. His mana was at roughly one percent by now. If he used his magic one more time, he would be knocked unconscious.
“Lynn!” Roland shouted in a panic, and Alen whipped his head around to see that the slope had opened up into another fall just ahead. Lynn beside him stiffened, and he could see clear as day that they had an absolute lack of a plan. Alen pulled on his mana, ready to give his last push before falling unconscious, before a voice sighed in his head. Time slowed.
“Didn’t I tell you to stop getting into these situations? Use the magic stone I gave you. It does more than just amplify your magic, you know. With the way you use your skeletons, I’d have thought that you’d have figured it out by now.”
Selerius’s voice melted away, and from within a sealed pocket inside of his robes, a green glow exploded out from the area near his chest. The slope disappeared below them. They began to fall. The cavern was different this time, full of holes and stalactites. Alen clutched at the small stone hidden within his robe, and the familiar sense of intimacy he felt towards it flowed from his hand to course through his body. His eyes widened as the magic in the vessel churned in response to his will.
This thing was a necrotic mana stone!
The magic in the stone coursed into his robes. The keratin bubbled with the mana within the stone. Alen’s hair whipped around wildly, but through it, just below them, he spotted a ledge he could throw the three of them into. His magic flared.
Boom! Roland’s shield shattered a pillar of stone that blocked their way. The ledge came closer. Closer. One of Lynn’s ballistic earth arrows tore through a large piece of stone falling from above them. Alen’s eyes flashed.
Now! The back of his robe burst outwards, and a pillar of keratin slammed into the wall behind him. It sent him forward. Lynn and Roland shouted in surprise as he grabbed them, pulling them forward with him. They blurred onwards, and just as Alen thought they’d make it, a fragment of the pillar the size of a shopping cart fell from above and slammed into his back.
He was propelled back down. The keratin pole shooting him forward broke from the force, and a single thought had the time to register in his head.
He was fucked. Alen grit his teeth. There was no wall to push him forward below. Just another bottomless pit. Roland and Lynn were right above him, falling. Alen’s fists clenched tightly. But that didn’t mean that they had to be fucked with him.
A thick pillar of keratin exploded out from the robe strapped to his chest. It slammed into Lynn and Roland. They looked at him, understanding registering in their eyes. Lynn screamed out his name. The two shot upwards, then fell back into the ledge, tumbling across and way from sight. Roland rolled, and looked up to see Lynn jump off the ledge after the necromancer. He bolted forward and grasped at the empty air below the ledge. The elf had already disappeared into the pit below. He paled at the feeling of the seemingly endless expanse below—it was threatening to swallow him up. He staggered back, sweat on his brow.
Roland glanced behind him. Darkness. The ledge opened up into a passage of sorts, a cave that ran deeper into the earth. He looked back down at the darkness below, and with a hard expression on his face, he turned his back from the fall and walked into the deep gloom ahead.
If those two survived, he’d find them. If they didn’t…
Roland kept walking in silence.
Alen was falling. He fell a lot. He usually stood back up right afterwards. That was just what he did. Whenever he fell, he’d stand up, and he’s keep on walking. That’s how he’d always gone about it. It had kept him moving forward. It had never failed him. Now however, there was a worrying lack of ground to stand back on. His hair whipped past his face. It sure was long now. Alen couldn’t remember the last time he had a haircut. He sighed and closed his eyes. So much for finding his old friends. It looked like it was the end of the line for him.
He felt regret swell up in his chest, but a sense of satisfaction was mingled along with it. He smiled. He was a badass necromancer. He had survived the forest of undead. He had traversed the Sandsea—thrived in the Crawling Canyon, the back of the giant centipede Ortena herself. And now, his final action had been to save his two new friends. It painted quite the tale. Even though death was coming, Alen felt satisfied at how far he’d come.
The only thing he was worried about besides his friends were Lynn and Roland. He sure hoped they’d manage to get out of this place alive.
He quite liked them, after all. They were cool.
Alen opened his eyes, intending to see the beautiful, luminescent blue crystals blur past his vision one last time, but instead, a figure began to fall past the darkness. A girl. Beautiful white hair. Blue eyes. Long ears.
He felt anger rise up his throat as Lynn called out to him.
“Alen!” She waved, grinning.
“Lynn,” Alen roared, glaring at her. “You dumbass! Why do you think I pushed you two up there!? You aren’t supposed to jump back in right after I do something so goddamn heroic! Are you trying to shit on me one last time before I die!? You ruined it! How am I supposed to go off in my final moments now!?”
Lynn dived, speeding up her descent. When she caught up to him, she punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Thanks,” she said.
Alen pursed his lips, caught off guard and unsure of what to say back. She laughed at him. For some reason, Alen felt the tears well up in his eyes.
“Why?” he asked through the roaring of the wind, looking straight at her.
“Personal thing,” she shrugged, shouting back. “I just hate it when I don’t pay someone back after they do something for me, y’know? It just seemed wrong to keep you hanging—well, falling. I wanted to at least thank you!”
“How the hell are you going to repay me if both of us are going to die!?”
Lynn shrugged, her hair flowing past her. “If you’re going to die trying to save me, then the least I could do is keep you company,” She smiled, then waved her hand to the side. “Not like I have much waiting for me, anyway. You saved Roland, at least. He’s too scared of heights to follow us down here. I think this is good enough.”
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Alen wiped his eyes. “This fucking sucks,” he whispered. His voice was taken by the wind, but the elf seemed to understand. She nodded.
“I'll have to agree, but as you say, shit happens, right?”
“Yeah.”
“The passage is opening up. I think the fall’s about to end. So much for a bottomless pit. I was hoping to have a nice chat for a few more minutes at least.”
“Lynn, I just want to say—“ Alen started.
“Oh!” She interrupted him. “We might survive this! Give me a second!” A soft, white light flashed from beneath the elf's clothing, around her neck, and in an instant, her hand had clasped around a glowing, green stone. Interrupted for the second time, Alen changed what he was about to say. Lynn shattered the windstone, and the resulting explosion of violent wind and mana slowed their fall by a significant amount. Before they hit the surface of the lake, Alen spared the effort to give her a glare.
“I hate you,” was all he could say, before they plunged deep into the water below.
--o--
Alen emerged from the water gasping and sputtering. Seeing the lakeshore just a distance away, he forced the strength to flow through his limbs and began to swim. By the time he reached the bank, his head was throbbing with so much pain that he thought he was going insane. Alen crawled out of the water and collapsed with his back to the cold stone below. His closed eyes opened, and slowly, they widened further at the twinkling lights above.
Black stone and flickering gemstones made up the cavern ceiling. Stalactites of blue crystal hung down like chandeliers, their glow bathing the lake below in a beautiful radiance. The surface of the water glimmered with an otherworldly light, while the ceiling served as the night sky, granting the underground world its own set of twinkling stars. Alen carefully let loose a breath, as if afraid that it would blow away the sense of awe he felt towards the scene before him. He licked his lips, managing to stand up with a bit of effort. Alen wondered if his two teammates would have the same reaction to this place as wel—
“Oh shit, Lynn!” He sprang up and slapped his forehead. That was right, she fell with him! Alen grit his teeth through the migraine and prepared himself to jump into the water again when he spotted the spreading sheet of ice in the distance. It was about the size of a dinner table, and at the center of it stood the familiar figure of Lynn who was similarly staring at the ceiling.
“Hey!” Alen shouted. “Lynn! Hey! I’m over here!”
The elf blinked and looked up at the crystals above one last time before walking towards him, ice forming at the bottom of her feet to help her walk over the lake’s surface. When she reached him and noted his haggard appearance, she nodded, impressed. “I honestly thought we’d be dead by now, you know? I don’t know whether to feel sorry or impressed for you at this point. I’m just a tagalong after all. It’s like you just have that something that attracts bad luck. First, getting stuck in the Crawling Canyon, then being the first to be struck down by the Manticore to, well, this. Have you always been this unlucky?”
“I was literally dropped as a baby,” said Alen.
“Explains a lot,” she nodded, grinning, before looking at his worn state. She frowned. “You need a break? Roland should be somewhere in here too. I can try contacting him with our party’s voice messaging system.”
“Yeah. Actually, ask me what’s up,” Alen started walking, and tilting her head, she followed.
“…Why?”
“Do it.”
She gave him a look, then sighed, “What’s up?” Lynn relented.
“The ceiling,” he ignored her glare, “Literally. Look up. Do you see the hole we fell through? I’m not sure if it’s just the lights, but I don’t see a thing.”
Lynn frowned. “The ceiling’s smooth—almost like a dome, actually. I don’t see anything from here either,” she looked around the place, her frown deepening, “and I certainly can’t see an exit.”
Alen nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I thought that it was just my crappy human eyes, but you have better vision in the dark than I do, right? If you can’t see anything either, then I’m afraid this place is going to become a problem.”
“Right,” she agreed, before interacting with a few blue screens that were invisible to Alen. “Hello?” Alen heard her voice in his head. Voice chat. Lynn scratched her cheek with a finger, pursing her lips at the lack of a response.
“Hi,” Alen sent back.
She gave him a look, then sent another message. “Roland? Hello? Please come get us. Alen might attract another disaster with whatever he has on him, and I don’t want to be here when that happens. I’d rather we leave him behind, really.”
Alen glared at her. “Roland, my boy,” he spoke through the chat. “We’re stuck in an underground world, you know? If you’re there, I vote we kick the elf out of the party. She eats way too much, and supplies are limited. While we can always fatten her up and eat her, I don’t think she’d taste nice to be honest. She’s rancid enough alive. I’m sure she agrees too.”
“I disrespectfully disagree. This is new territory, Roland. Look at him. Does this guy look like he’s good at dealing with people? If we meet natives, getting chased out of a village would be the least of our worries with him around.”
“She’d just raid their storehouses to eat. Don’t you know that stealing was punishable by torture and execution in some cultures? She’s dangerous, man.”
“He’ll threaten to do horrible things to their children!”
“She’ll eat their children!”
“Fight me!” She screamed.
Alen took a stance and prepared to charge at her. “Come at me, you fucking glutton!”
The elf waved her hand. Water splashed down from above him. He looked up, and when he saw the grin on her face, he paled. “Wait, no. Magic isn’t allowe—“ She waved her hand again. The water soaking him froze, and he immediately felt his body stiffen. The ice solidified, and almost comically, he fell to the ground, frozen solid.
He screamed through the coating of ice, but his words were incomprehensible as he couldn’t move his lips. Lynn walked up to him, laughing.
“What was that?” she asked.
More screeching. Probably cursing. No, she thought, probably entirely curses. She nodded to herself in agreement.
“You’ll be OK, Alen. I can’t hear you, but if you’re complaining about the cold, you have that spell, right? Numb Senses?” She squatted down, smirking from above. “Oh, suck it up you little baby. You won’t die from a little cold. Your stats are too high for that. It’ll feel like walking around naked on a snowy day at most. Everyone’s done it at least once. It’ll be plenty comfortable. You have an affinity to fire too, right? Just melt it off when you can use your mana again. I’ll just be looking around. If the bad men come, just scream, okay?”
With that, she left. Alen gritted his teeth and waited for his mana to recover. Numb Senses was in effect, but his mana was low enough that he didn’t want to spend too much, and while it did make some of the cold go away, it was about as comfortable as a king’s bed made of, well, ice. He couldn’t exactly be creative with his comparisons at the moment. His head was jelly with all the spell-spamming and mana-using he’d been doing. He sighed internally. The situation really made him realize how badly he did some things today.
Mana management. He was garbage at it. Alen tried to make up for that fact by improving spell programs and reducing the amount his magic used, but really, he was just bad at estimating how much he had left until his head started hurting. Alen promised himself that he would make a program for a mana bar that would show up somewhere in his line of sight without needing to be summoned one day. That should ease some of his problems. He looked down at himself. As for this…
He’d find a way over effects like this eventually too. He was restrained way too easily just now, and if he encountered an enemy that specialized in crowd control effects, then he was toast. Maybe some armor that decayed effects? Or one that just made him strong enough to ignore them? Alen shivered. He looked down at himself and grunted. Enough contemplation. His mana was already at fifteen or so percent anyways. He grit his teeth, and despite the small ache on the back of his head, he channeled his mana again, flavoring the pure magic with his fire affinity. It melted far too slow. Figures, he complained. He grunted and amped up his magic. Ice dripped off his face. He grinned.
Steam began to rise, and seconds later, he was back on his feet.
Alen let loose a breath. “Now, where did she go?” He raised an eyebrow and assessed his surroundings. The entire place was far from barren. Aside from the lake at the center, boulders decorated the landscape, accentuated by fluorescent mushrooms and creeping, blue vines that slithered down from various high points all over the cavern.
Alen pursed his lips. Where the hell did she go?
Seeing that standing around would accomplish practically nothing, Alen looked at his mana one last time and began to walk.
The cavern was pretty nice, all things considered. Alen always wanted to see glowing mushrooms. This place was pretty cliché, if he was going to be honest, but still. The classics were the classics for a reason, and if glowing mushrooms didn’t fall into that category, then elves would be niche too. After all, glowing mushrooms were just straight up nicer. Elves were mean. Alen fell into thought and tilted his head. It was actually interesting to think about how these things glowed. He could always just use ‘ooh magic’ to justify everything, but if there was anything he’d ever learned from Mana Programming, it would be that mana had a structure—a system.
Essentially, these things glowed for a goddamned reason, and he wanted to find out.
Alen grew a thin, keratin pole from his sleeve and snapped it off. With his mana capacity, it barely taxed him to do something like it, especially when the keratin wasn’t even strengthened with his magic. He held the pole in his hand, and just to make sure he wouldn’t get killed by touching one, he poked a mushroom with it.
The mushroom grew eyes, black and beady. Almost cute, even. They blinked, before slowly settling on him. Alen stared.
It shuddered in response, then a pair of arms and legs popped out from its body. The mushroom stood up, tilted its head at him, and took off. Alen watched it run past him, stunned. Other mushrooms in the area grew eyes as well, giving him and the other shroom curious glances before ultimately going back to sleep. Alen blinked, then shook his head and ran after the mushroom.
“Wait!” He called out to it, but the mushroom paid him little heed as it hobbled down a few rocks, descending down a slope. Alen ran after it, slipping on his way down. Pebbles and dust rolled down with him, and as Alen hit the ground, he rolled and gracefully got back on his feet before taking off into a run again. The fluorescent little creature turned a corner into some sort of passage, and Alen followed.
His steps slowly came to a stop.
The cave entrance opened up into a large area that housed two tents of a material Alen couldn’t recognize at first glance. A fire blazed in the middle of the camp, but it hardly attracted his attention. Alen’s eyes were glued to the pikes in front of the camp that had been stabbed into the earth. On the ends of the wooden spikes were the heads of pale-skinned, big-eyed humanoid creatures. Blood dripped to the earth below. Torsos and limbs were stacked neatly beside the tents, while a small torso sizzled above the fire.
It was that of a child’s. His eyes traveled to the tents. It looked eerily familiar. He felt cold sweat line his back. Those tents were made of skin. Flayed—stitched together.
A chill crept down his spine. Alen took another involuntary step back, face as white as a ghost. He heard steps coming from behind him. Alen screamed in a panic and whirled.
Lynn looked back at him, her face pale. She opened her mouth. Her lips were trembling.
“Alen,” she whispered, her voice laced with horror, “We need to leave. Now.”
He was about to answer when his eyes flashed. The mushroom. It was what led him here! Alen looked back at the mushroom just in time to see its beautiful blue glow turn into a menacing, bloody red. It grew a mouth. Alen channeled his mana into his sleeve. He screamed.
“Don’t—“
It screamed louder. A piercing screech like nails on a blackboard filled the caverns.
“Agh!” He covered his ears, feeling the insides of his already throbbing head vibrate. Lynn was the same, covering her ears and crying out in pain. Numb Senses came into effect. Alen grabbed her arm, and at the same time, pikes of keratin exploded out from the soles of his boots. They shot out of the cave. The pain was gone, but the ringing in his ears persisted even through Numb Senses. A spear shot out of the cave—it buried into his shoulder. The impact sent him spinning midair. They slammed into the ground, rolling. The spear was ripped out by the fall, taking flesh with it. The edges were hooked.
Shouting. Maniacal laughter. It was coming from behind them. Alen’s body continued to roll, but he refused to stop there. His robe knit back together. Alen channeled the mana to his back. Pikes exploded out from the back of his robe. It sent them into the air again, and when Alen looked down, he saw three horned, obsidian-skinned men with piercing red eyes rush out of the cave. The spears they’d thrown from their bags had impaled the spot the two of them had just been in.
The things sprinted towards the two of them. Ringing. His ears were still ringing. Alen grit his teeth and blew a column of Rotfire into the three of them. He screamed. His head felt like it was burning. The enemy emerged from the flames unscathed. More spears flew at them. A shield of keratin exploded from Alen’s right arm, covering them in a half-sphere. Some of the spears pierced through. One got him through the side. Another impaled his left hand. Numb Senses. Bone Spear sent them away further. His mana was declining. Lynn was behind him. She screamed out his name. She pulled him back, ice forming as they landed on the ground. She carried him, her feet gliding above the surface of the ice.
She threw something to the ground, and a pillar of snow rose up from the frost tracing behind her feet, absorbing the next volley of spears like a sponge. The demonic-looking creatures shredded the hill of snow apart. Lynn was panting. Alen’s vision was blurring. More spears. One pierced through her bicep. She cried out.
Alen planted his feet to the ground and roared. A boom rang out. A powerful bone spear had shot them into the air. They were above the lake now. One of the three men blurred ahead of the other two and jumped after them. The man drew his fist back for a strike. Alen raised his arm, and a thick layer of reinforced keratin covered his forearm. The figure punched—the keratin shattered. Alen felt something in his arm crack. Lynn grabbed an arrow from her quiver and stabbed it into the figure’s chest. The arrow shaft snapped off. Alen pulled his torso back and aimed his feet at the creature. He kicked.
Bone Spear.
Bang! The bone spears collided with its chest, sending it back and them forward. The necromancer raised his arms. Black, Numbing Mist billowed out from Alen’s sleeves, obscuring them from sight. Lynn pulled him down and with a splash, they sunk into the lake below.
The waterstone on her bracer glowed, and like a torpedo, they shot towards the bottom of the lake. The pressure squeezed out blood from Alen’s wounds. His vision was darkening—fogging up. He wouldn’t be conscious for long. Lynn was pulling them into what looked like a hole in the bottom of the lake. Alen looked over at her and spared the energy to give her a glare.
This girl had better not get him killed.