Despite being exhausted, Anastacia couldn't fall asleep that night. She tossed and turned in her bed and every time she started to drift off to sleep, a knock or a bump from somewhere woke her back up. It was pointless to even keep trying without finding a way to calm down first.
By the time the moon had climbed all the way to the highest point in the sky, the sounds from the tavern downstairs had died down considerably, but some cheery chatter was still audible at times. So far in her life, Anastacia had spent almost all her nights in the complete silence of her home, so the background noise did take some getting used to, but ultimately it was nice, especially the happy tone of the other adventurers going about their business, something her life had seriously lacked so far.
She sat up in her bed to take a look at the still surprisingly busy street under her window. Though the shops and boutiques had largely closed their doors for the day, the adventurers returning from taverns, guild offices and their quests still created a steady stream of people that was only just beginning to die down.
“Maybe a warm drink would help?” The necromancer pondered and levered herself out of the bed to get dressed in whatever was the first piece of proper clothing she found in the dark.
Before heading downstairs, she also grabbed the daggers from the small shelf attached to the headboard of her bed. Fiddling with a belt to have something to strap them onto turned out to be a challenge in the moonlight, and even after taking a while to do it, the belt ended up just being loosely held up on her hips and kept sliding down when Anastacia walked.
On the tavern’s side, there were still a good number of adventurers having the time of their lives with the aid of a considerable amount of alcohol. She recognized a few of them, but getting caught up for too long wasn’t her intention, so she decided to quietly slip into the kitchen to see if Rosie could help her.
In the back of the kitchen, hidden from too many prying eyes, Anastacia found the innkeeper and Emilia intensely talking about something. She thought it was nice that the priestess was finally getting over her fear of Rosie. They didn’t initially notice the necromancer sneaking up to them, but when she spoke up, the two quickly leaned a bit further away from each other.
“What’s up?” Asked Anastacia from her startled friends.
Rosie immediately stood up to pretend she was actually still doing something in the kitchen. “Oh nothing, kitten. Miss priestess here was just telling me about… Sylvana?” She said, very obviously just making it up on the fly, at least obviously to anyone but the necromancer.
“Sylvia!” Emilia backed up the claim.
“Yeah, sure, that one.” The innkeeper nodded. “Anyway, is something wrong? Are you having trouble sleeping?” She asked and kneeled to fix Anastacia’s hair slightly.
Even the naïve necromancer could tell that something was up, but she was far too tired to even attempt to find out what. “A bit. Can’t help but to think about all the stuff I’ve dragged you all into. I have friends for the first time in my life and now they’re all in danger because of me.” She explained what had gone through her hear during the evening.
Rosie started to make some relaxing chamomile tea for both Anastacia and herself. “You don’t need to worry about those kinds of things. You’re not the first or the last person to drag their past here along with them. The deal is that every single adventurer will lay down their life for every other adventurer, and most of them will do it gladly if it means fighting something unusual. I wouldn’t put it past some of the people here to go out of their way to challenge these necromancers just so they could tell the guild about it and get some exclusive quests thrown at them.” She explained and scoffed at Anastacia’s worries.
“If you say so…” Anastacia accepted and took the cup of hot tea that was offered to her. “But it’s not just that. If Xamiliere hadn’t been outside today, I don’t think I would be here now. I can’t just keep running at problems and hoping that I keep getting lucky like that.”
Suddenly Emilia grabbed the necromancer’s hand and squeezed it against her metal armor. “That’s why Gil and I will be with you whenever you need help. Luck is no factor when you’ve got Lady Sylvia on your side.” She said happily.
“Thanks, maybe you’re right, but I still need to do something. I think I’ll just take my tea upstairs and start going through the book Coquelicot left for me.” Anastacia smiled and took her leave.
As she quickly passed by the tavern on her way to the stairs, Anastacia was spotted by the spriggan who had helped her. Xamiliere blew a kiss at her from across the room but was completely ignored as the necromancer picked up the pace to get to her room faster after noticing the gesture. While Anastacia was obviously thankful and to a degree indebted to the spriggan, she was nowhere near thankful enough to even consider the nature spirit’s constant barrage of extremely inappropriate advances. It definitely felt like a situation where giving her a finger would end with losing the entire arm – and then some.
As she took out the book again, she happened to remember the bathhouse the guard had mentioned when she first arrived at Valor. Perhaps giving it a chance was what her nerves needed, or the party could take a new quest and she could busy her mind with that. It was definitely something to bring up with Gilbert in the morning.
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To escape her dress once more, she absentmindedly placed the cup of tea on the beautifully made leather cover, leaving a ring-shaped stain and causing irreparable damage within a few hours of acquiring the precious tome.
“Oh… Great! Now even if I manage to pull this whole thing off, Alizarin will kill me for sure.” She groaned and considered trying to lick the stain away but remembered that the last one to touch the book was literally using a set of hands from a dead person.
The cover of the book, in the traditional Mournvalleyan style, was fashioned from black leather and bound with extreme care and skill by the writer himself. The title was pressed into the cover and the spine and the letters had been carefully gilded. The contents were handwritten with meticulous accuracy and without a rushed sentence among them. Besides the stain that it now carried, the entire thing was in pristine condition and felt like it had barely been opened before.
Anastacia opened the book from the beginning and began reading out lout. “The Truth of Flesh and Bone: How to Combat Rogue Necromancers. By Alizarin of the Red Inquisi- oh fuck me, I’m so dead!”
Despite being equally likely to be her cause of death later down the line as the inquisitors themselves, the book seemed like it would contain some extremely valuable information that would certainly help with her current troubles.
Looking down the list of chapters, Anastacia read out loud a few of them. “Basics of using necromancy against necromancers, improved control patterns, efficient usage of materials, flesh as material, bone as material, blood as material… Maybe it’s better if I just go through the basics to be sure.” She muttered and flipped through the foreword.
Alizarin’s handwriting was extremely on point; though slightly stylized, it was easy to read – as opposed some other malformed scribblings Anastacia had witnessed when studying before.
“The basics of fighting necromancers with necromancy are fairly simple: everyone enters the battle with a plan, yours is to successfully make sure the enemy fails to execute theirs, only after that is it your time to swiftly end the fight with your preferred method.
“To do this, it is absolutely imperative that you study the fugitive before doing anything, as every necromancer that wishes to fight effectively has to choose a specialization, and knowing your opponent’s is the single most beneficial piece of intel there is. Knowing this allows you to plan accordingly and oftentimes outmaneuver even those stronger than you.
“But the limitation of methods is just as much of a requirement to you, and as inquisitors, you are required to learn and perfect your methods to a point that no one is able to surpass you. Think of your abilities as a scalpel, sharp beyond comparison, but only a single edge. Necromancers so powerful that they can make it as a jack of all trades are rare beyond belief, and even then, it is both my predecessors’ and my belief, that they are wasting their potential.
“A specialization can be anything from infinite options but should be chosen based on your natural gifts. If you have gained access to this tome, you likely know the limits of your abilities, so take a moment to consider your options. Some necromancers find it naturally easier to command massive armies of thralls, some are able to control powerful beings, some have a natural affinity to work on the very fringes of their range, others find their powers lessen harshly after only a few meters. These are mere examples in an infinite ocean of variations.
“With these specializations, comes an inevitable game of rock-paper-scissors, and in this line of work, you will run into situations where everything seems to be stacked against you. Which brings us back to my first point: your opponent having a rock against your scissors only matters if you allow them to cast that stone. Use the intel you’ve gathered to overwhelm and shutdown your opponent as quickly as possible.”
Anastacia had never even thought about having a specialization, not that she ever needed one. So far raw power had worked just fine, and any teachers that had taught her, had given up way before something so advanced even came up. Which was likely the reason for her troubles as well, she had never learned to be effective or efficient. If she was supposed to think of her powers as a weapon of any kind, it would have definitely been a wooden mallet. So perhaps she needed to backtrack even further and find out how to use her uncontested prowess efficiently in the first place. She could have torn the control of the skeletons away from Auburn, and she could have taken over Coquelicot’s arms, but she simply didn’t know how to go about doing it.
Whether it was the tea or the book, after going through the rest of the first chapter, the necromancer felt like she could calm down enough to get some sleep. She placed the note from Alizarin between the pages to mark where she had gotten to, and carefully hid the tome under her bed to shield it from any further damage.
The sounds form the tavern had died down as well, and the streets had been almost empty for a while. After a couple more checks for necromancers nearby, Anastacia was finally able to doze off and fall asleep.
Though most of the adventurers had found their way into their rooms upstairs, Gilbert and Dammar were still smoking their pipes and chatting at a pace of a few words every couple of minutes. With them in the tavern were a few other adventurers that represented nocturnal beastfolk races and only really came out at night, as well as Holly, who simply sat behind the counter and stared at the patrons without blinking.
The dwarf emptied the ashes from his pipe and started packing a new batch of tobacco in it. “She’s quite something, that girl of yours.” He said while working on his pipe. “She’ll be a heck of an adventurer.”
“Aye.” Gilbert nodded and puffed smoke at his empty tankard. “She’ll outgrow this old man eventually; I just hope it’ll take long enough for me to save money for a peaceful retirement.”
“Are these words coming out of my friend’s mouth or did you get replaced by someone? You know just as well as I, that men like us will meet our end out there, and we’re lucky for it!” Dammar boasted and both of the old adventurers laughed heartily. “On a related note, have a look at this.” He continued and slid a folded piece of paper over the table.
Gilbert opened it and raised his brows at the number written at the bottom. “That’s a lot of gold.” He muttered.
“That it is. It’s these scholarly types that get their funding from some crown head. I was thinking that it’s enough work and reward for six. Goblins can be a bit of a hassle with just three pairs of hands, not to mention machine forts.” Dammar nodded and lit his pipe.
“I need to run it by the ladies, but they’re both eager to prove themselves, so I feel like they’ll take the bait.” Gilbert said and handed the note back to his friend. “But how about another round of drinks first?”