The Anchor of The Immortal King woke up staring at the same empty wall she had stared for years now. She didn’t get much sleep on most nights and the windowless room was too dark to read in, so she spent her time by staring at the wall next to her bed. Not having a window also meant that she had no idea what time of the day it was, not that it mattered much, she would be summoned whenever it was time for some bullshit ritual or if she was needed for something else the cult was up to, which usually meant killing people.
“Good morning, wall. How was your night? Mine was alright, kind of turned to shit since I woke up instead of dying in my sleep, but that’s life.” She said and yawned. “Any chance you could collapse for me today? No? Oh well, I’ll ask again tomorrow.”
The bed was basically a rug on a stone slab, far from comfortable, but she had gotten used to it. Normally she would have a pillow and a blanket too, but those were taken away when she told one of the royals to go fuck themselves with a hedgehog. The room wasn’t cold or anything and she could always use some clothes as a pillow, so it was definitely worth it to in her opinion. Especially since as far as punishments went in Mournvalley, it was almost nothing; and if anyone besides her did something like that, it’d be the last thing they did – at least willingly.
A sharp knock on the heavy iron door of her room interrupted The Anchor’s conversation with the wall.
“Anchor! The inquisition is visiting today, so you need to look presentable! You have five minutes.” One of her usual attendants yelled from the other side of the door, without opening it.
“Sure thing, shitface!” The Anchor answered. Insulting her attendants was one of the few ways she could rebel against the royals; since the attendants were all common folk, no one gave a damn what she called them. They wouldn’t be able to do anything about it either, if they raised their hand against her in front of the guards, they’d be killed on the spot. The Anchor may have been basically a prisoner, but she was still royalty and an integral part of how things worked in Mournvalley.
She slowly got up from the bed and scuffled over to a mirror. The only source of light in the room was the small barred up window above the door, that allowed in some of the light from the hallway. It didn’t always have bars on it, but after The Anchor had crawled through it and elbow dropped the necromancer guarding her door, they had to be installed. She also used to have a candle, but that as also confiscated after she set her bed on fire and almost died from smoke inhalation. After wiggling into one of her black dresses with a collar that covered the lower part of her face and combing her long white hair, she took out a small box from under her wardrobe and opened it. Inside of the box were two items: a pendant and a dull dagger.
She took the dagger and stared at it for a while. Her intention was to sharpen it against the stone wall of her room, but the noise would no doubt alarm the guard outside, so she hadn’t gotten the chance to do it yet. “One day, my friend, one day…” She whispered, put it back in the box and grabbed the pendant before hiding the box again.
A second sharp knock on the door meant that her time was over, she quickly put on the pendant and knocked back to signal that she was ready.
“Keep your hands visible and don’t even think about doing anything stupid.” The attendant said and unlocked the door.
Most areas of the castle were guarded by skeletons and other thralls, but that wasn’t the case for The Anchor’s room. Her attendants and guards had to be selected from the few necromancers that could stand up to her, even for a few seconds. Though it wasn’t going to last forever, since despite her unwillingness to learn, she was far stronger than almost anyone else in the castle and would eventually grow their beyond control with just what she learned from casual usage of necromancy. If she was going to remain uncooperative, she would be moved to the inquisition’s headquarters to be detained for at least a few years, until she would be tortured into submission. It was something The Anchor herself shouldn’t have known but had overheard from a discussion outside her door, and ever since then she had been hiding what she could actually do to hopefully find a way to escape before it happened, either outside the borders or from the mortal realm if things started to look bad.
When the door opened, The Anchor was blinded by the relative brightness of the hallway, making her choose between shielding her eyes with one hand and only giving the attendant the finger with the other, or just suffering through it to double her bird flipping potential.
The attendant was used to her behavior already and simply ignored the gesture while slapping on a pair of cuffs on her wrists and dragging The Anchor out from the room with the lead attached to them. He was obviously getting tired of his job, because as soon as they were out of the guard’s view, the attendant pulled on the lead quickly and made her fall over.
“Are you tired of life or just stupid? I’ll tattle on you.” The Anchor threatened him while getting back up.
“No one will believe you, and they’re all busy with the inquisition anyway. So you just sit in your chair and keep your mouth shut.” The attendant pointed out and dragged her to the throne room.
The throne room was a large, open hall with the main door in one end and the throne itself in the other. The way from the main door to the throne was open, and on both sides of it were two rows of long tables for the royalty to sit behind. On either side of the throne were five smaller tables reserved for the leaders of families and a sixth one for Amaranth, the commander of the red inquisition and her second-in-command. And finally, right next to the throne with the manky skeleton on it, was The Anchor’s little wooden stool.
Aside from a couple of guards, the hall was still empty when The Anchor sat down. Her lead was tied to the throne, so she couldn’t escape – again, and her attendant went to the corner of the hall, since it was in no way acceptable for a commoner like him to be too close to The Immortal King.
The skeleton of The Immortal King Alabaster was covered in carefully engraved patterns that ensured his longevity even without the constant presence of The Anchor and clothed in white robes that had golden detailing on them. When The Anchor glanced at it, its head slowly turned to face her – the will of the previous anchor still lingered in the patterns, even years after their death. She herself had yet to pour in hers, since it would have to be done during a special night in the middle of the city, for no other reason than to look good to the common necromancers of the land.
“You’re so fucking gross.” She whispered to the skeleton and turned away.
Slowly, the royals started to drift into the hall and find their places. On the way, every single one of them stared at The Anchor with varying amounts of disdain and disgust. Being the anchor was the highest honor a necromancer could receive and only possible for the strongest necromancers around, so her being so violently against it was considered to be a grievous insult to every necromancer out there.
When the lower ranking royals had sat down and gotten their drinks served to them, the guards at the door started to declare the names of the ten family leaders as they entered. In pairs, they walked over to the throne and kneeled on front of the king. The Anchor’s job was to welcome them all by whispering the words ‘The Immortal King Alabaster welcomes you.’
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The third couple was made of a short woman with long white hair and a lanky bald man, they were unremarkable in every possible way and didn’t stand out from the rest of the crowd with their power or skill in necromancy either. When they kneeled in front of the skeleton, The Anchor whispered to them differently from the rest of the Higher ups. “The Immortal King Alabaster welcomes you, mother, father…” She grinned as the couple glanced at her in utter disgust and hurried to their seats.
While her parents resided in the same castle, The Anchor hadn’t really been considered to be anyone’s child at any point, she was technically the property of The Immortal King or a part of him. However, it was something both she and her parents could agree on. At first her mother and father were extremely proud about how their line was the one the new anchor came from, but as she grew to be what she was, it quickly changed into shame and disgust. The whole family line became a bit of a joke within the castle, and only held on to their position thanks to some old rules. The Anchor herself on the other hand, had long since decided that if things started to look bad, she would take every single one of the ten assholes with her to the grave and her parents would get no special treatment – but fucking with them was fun anyway.
The last pair to arrive by the throne were the inquisition’s higher ups. An old woman by the name of Amaranth, who was responsible of the many skeletons guarding the castle; and a younger one that was known to most of the world though her violent deeds, even if they didn’t know the name Coquelicot. Both of them were wearing the inquisition’s blood-red uniform and stood out from the rest of the necromancers in many ways.
The Anchor was extremely terrified of them, partly because she was taught to be and partly because both of them were so far beyond anyone living in the castle that their presence blotted out everyone else’s. She greeted them normally, though with a lot better posture and held her breath until they had found their seat. The inquisition visited the castle every now and then, and The Anchor had actually talked to a couple of the newer but equally insane members briefly, but she would never get used to these two.
The ceremony continued as usual, food and drinks were served to everyone but The anchor, some irrelevant garbage was spouted by almost everyone in the room and nothing of value was achieved. All in all, it was a very usual meeting of assholes as far as she was concerned. Though the inquisition’s second-in-command kept glancing at The Anchor in a weird way, which made her very, very worried.
After about two hours of the nonsense, one of the family heads stood up. “As the last matter of the day, I would like to discuss about a prisoner our forces captured last night along one of our borders. We suspect that he might be an adventurer, which means his case deserves some more thought than usual.” He declared and pointed at the hall’s main doors, where five skeletons dragged along a massive, grizzly old man that had been restrained by what looked like most of Mournvalley’s shackles and chains. “Valor is usually willing to buy back their adventurers whenever one is caught by the rightful rulers of the area, so depending on how successful this boulder of a man has been on his career, he might fetch a considerable amount of supplies. So my question is: Should we contact Valor or not?”
The Anchor had seen a million of these kinds of situations already and every single time they ended up killing the supposedly valuable prisoner, so the poor sod had more than likely come to the end of his travels. To her, he seemed like a friendly looking old man and it was certainly a shame that he ever found himself in the land of the necromancers. When their eyes met briefly, The Anchor waved to the captured giant.
Suddenly the inquisition’s second-in-command stood up and cleared her throat, silencing every other voice in the room. “Really? Are we really discussing about this trivial matter? Every single one of you knows that Mournvalley does not deal with lesser nations. So no, we are not going to contact anyone about this trespasser, as he is ours now. Instead I propose that he is given to The Anchor as a practice body. She has clearly been avoiding training again, so tomorrow, I will personally oversee her process this hunk of meat!” She suggested and unfolded her gross skeletal arms to point at the prisoner, The Anchor and herself at the same time.
Everyone knew how much The Anchor hated pointless killing, so the suggestion was extremely popular among the royals, simply because it would bother her for weeks or months, like it always did. And so, the proposition was accepted without a single differing opinion – aside from The Anchor’s, but her opinion was neither heard nor cared about. She couldn’t do anything but look at the adventurer apologizingly as he was dragged away, presumably to be kept in a cell until the next day.
The meeting continued with another meal for everyone besides The Anchor, who would get hers later in her room – maybe. The idea behind her not getting anything to eat was as stupid as everything else in the country of Mournvalley: supposedly, as a repayment for keeping The Immortal King anchored to the mortal realm, The Anchor was given his death to keep, meaning all of their earthly needs disappeared so that they didn’t need to eat, drink, breathe or sleep. Which was why she was kept hidden in a cell most of the time and was not supposed to eat or drink in public. Of course, anyone with a half of their brain working could have realized how bullshit it was, but it fooled the masses and that was what mattered. Usually it didn’t cause her much problems, but every now and then she needed to make a public appearance, during which she had to stay awake without food or water for over a day, because someone among the people taking her around wasn’t in on the scam. But somehow that was one of the least unpleasant sides of her job.
One of the things The Anchor often did while waiting for the meetings to be over, was to figure out how many of the shitheels in the hall she could kill before someone got a lucky shot in and stopped her. The royals had next to no training beyond the very basics that are taught to everyone, so even with most of her powers still beyond her control, she could overcome them with ease, though with the inquisitors there, the number was considerably lower than usually. It would still be a suicide, even without the inquisitors, but the only thing keeping The Anchor from doing it was the faint hope of escaping the country alive.
When the ceremony finally ended, she was taken back to her room and locked in the dark. Once her eyes got used to the darkness, she took out the hidden box again, placed the pendant in it and picked up the dagger. “That old guy was an adventurer, right? I wonder what it’s like to be one of them? Bet they get do all kinds of crazy stuff. Maybe I’ll have a chance to talk with him before I… kill him…” She said and swung the dagger around.
Her flailing was interrupted by a weirdly strong presence of a necromancer that was heading towards her room. While not as dominating as the inquisitors earlier, it was certainly something she didn’t see every day.
“This is The Anchor’s room, I can feel her inside. How about the prisoner?” Asked a man whose voice The Anchor didn’t recognize.
“Down there, the last cell on the right.” The guard outside the room answered, right before his presence disappeared as the unknown visitor decapitated him.
The guard was supposed to be someone who could stand up to The Anchor, even if it was for a brief moment, he wasn’t a pushover. So whoever killed him so swiftly, more than likely had it in them to kill her too.
As the visitor started fitting a key to the door, The Anchor’s mind raced, looking for a way she would even stand a chance. She gripped the dagger and anxiously waited for the door to open, planning to rush at whoever was behind it.
But the door never opened, the attacker simply unlocked it and continued walking down the hallway. They stopped at the end, unlocked a second door there and started heading back. “Anchor… Anastacia, gather what you have and flee with the adventurer. Others have been tasked with creating a distraction to make sure the castle is empty, do not waste our efforts.” The visitor calmly said while passing her door again and disappeared as quickly as he had appeared…
Anastacia flinched awake on her throne in the roofless castle build by her goblin tribe. Covered in cold sweat, she hastily looked around to make sure she wasn’t still in Mournvalley. Nightmares like this happened every now and then and she would always feel a bit disoriented after them. Most of the time it took a few minutes for her to be absolutely sure she was awake.
King had noticed her distress and reached out to the necromancer.
She pressed the simulacrum’s hand against her chest and took a deep breath. “Okayokayokay… We’re here in the goblin castle, it’s… afternoonish, no other necromancers nearby…” She confirmed to herself and settled down. “I should stop thinking about that shithole before napping... Anyway, have we got anything to eat?”