“I can’t believe that ancient fuck found a way to make my life harder even from beyond the grave.” Anastacia muttered and dragged her hand along the wall as she and Gilbert continued to climb up the corridor towards what they hoped was an exit from the underground tunnels.
Gilbert had tossed the unconscious priestess over his shoulder and carried the hunk of metal given to them by Sylvia in his other hand. He didn’t actually want anything to do with the reward, even if he had agreed to help the goddess because of what he considered a lapse in judgement, as it simply didn’t feel right for him to accept anything from the divine. Instead he had suggested that the necromancer should use it to have a new sword made for King, once they had gotten over their disagreements of course.
“This Amaranth, she was old enough to be the same person the baron spoke about?” He asked and adjusted Emilia’s position. The priestess was surprisingly heavy for her size, even for someone with so much armor on.
“Well the remains here were about fifty years old, and she was way older than that, and chances are that there weren’t too many Amaranths running about in red robes back then.” Anastacia shrugged. “But that doesn’t really matter, since there’s nothing in this world that’d make me go back to Mournvalley, assuming I’d be let back there in the first place.”
“Fair enough. I know some scholars in Valor who can help. It’ll probably get us started if I describe the emblem to them.” Gilbert suggested.
Suddenly Anastacia stopped dead on her tracks and closed her eyes. “People, five of them. We must be close to the surface.” She reported before carrying on.
“Finally.” Gilbert sighed in relief. “Makes sense they’d have someone searching the ruins you disappeared into after the whole kid punching episode.”
As they got closer to the exit, the air turned colder and ever so slightly fresher, suggesting that there indeed was at least some kind of a gap that led outside. Soon enough they could see the mechanism locking them from the outside world. A large stone door with a large metal disk in the middle, on which was a familiar-looking hole for the simulacrum core. Anastacia slid in the stone cylinder and watched as the light patterns slowly spread to cover the door and the walls around it.
“Open?” She said and hoped that it functioned like the voice-activated gate to the keep, but the ancient door didn’t budge. Frustrated, the necromancer began haphazardly poking the lights on the metal disk but achieved nothing with it. None of the lights appeared to do anything besides flicker briefly after getting touched. “Meat, do something.” She groaned and turned to Gilbert.
Gilbert carefully placed the priestess on the floor and leaned the piece of iron on her. He then tapped the door with his fist to see how sturdy it was and came to a conclusion that he may as well have hit a stone wall. “It’s not going to open by force. I’m not sure what you’re expecting me to do here? You’re the only one that has gone through here before.” He pointed out and started tapping the lights as well. “Maybe try hitting on it?”
“Fuck off.” Anastacia grumbled and stared at the door for a while. “Well he is kind of cute, I suppose.”
“Anna, that’s literally several square meters of stone, that weigh multiple tons. How is it a ‘he’ and how on earth is it cute?” Gilbert frowned and scratched his head in confusion.
“Are you calling him fat? Kind of rude for someone who’s only a slight curse away from a bunch of extra padding. Besides, you’re nothing but a lump of meat in the end, so how are you a ‘he’?” Anastacia sneered and patted the door a couple of times.
“That’s not how it works, and you know it – wait, do you?” Gilbert asked sounding genuinely concerned.
The necromancer shrugged. “Just turn around, dipshit, and remember: peekers lose peepers.” She advised her friend and spun her finger.
Gilbert took a deep breath and turned around. “I swear… If you manage to open it, I’m just going to quit and become a farmer because clearly nothing makes sense anymore.” He muttered and looked at the unconscious priestess, who had regained her usual look yet still didn’t show any signs of waking up. He heard Anastacia whisper something a few times but couldn’t make out what she was saying, but after a minute or so of waiting, he heard the screeching sound of a massive stone door sliding down to allow the adventurers to exit. Slightly disappointed by how the world apparently worked however the necromancer thought it did, Gilbert quietly picked up Emilia and the piece of iron next to her before turning around.
Looking awfully proud of herself, Anastacia grinned and tugged on her clothes a few times to straighten them.
“I’m choosing to believe you just guessed the right lights to press.” Gilbert said and walked past the necromancer without so much as sharing a look with her.
“Sure, maybe I accidentally pressed the few correct lights out of a hundred or so, or maybe a bit of friendliness and womanly wiles gets you pretty far in this world.” Anastacia snickered and followed him out.
While they had been in the tunnels, the day had turned into night and the temperature had dropped well below freezing. As usual, Gilbert wasn’t bothered by it despite his lack of proper clothing, but Anastacia was not nearly as hardy and didn’t even have her trusty cloak to shield her from the cold.
As the door slid back up and the lights simmered down behind them, the soldiers patrolling the area began closing in on the adventurers. They had definitely heard the door as well, and knew roughly where to look, so Gilbert and Anastacia found themselves without obvious ways out of the situation and had to confront the five soldiers.
“Halt! Drop your weapons and explain your business here! We’re on the hunt for a dangerous fugitive and have orders to arrest anyone lurking in these ruins!” Yelled the first soldier that spotted the adventurers and pointed his sword at them.
The rest of the soldiers quickly rallied around the adventurers and used their torches to light the area.
“I’m here to be a dangerous fugitive.” The necromancer mocked their supposed captors.
“Seriously, guys, this is a terrible idea on all fronts. Whatever you get paid for this isn’t worth it.” Gilbert advised the soldiers and hoped that they were smarter than they were loyal.
The soldiers glanced at each other quickly while making their decision. With shaky hands, they pointed their swords at the adventurers again and prepared for a fight – a fight they obviously weren’t going to get.
“We have our orders. Now drop your weapons and come along peacefully or face the consequences.” The soldier from before insisted.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
And with that, they lost their ability to move as Anastacia got tired of the holdup. Having frozen them in place, she began to go through whatever bags the unfortunate patrollers were carrying on their person.
Gilbert shook his head and glared at her disapprovingly. “Really, Anna? You’re going to steal their stuff now? You already took the sword earlier.”
“I’m looking for gloves, you idiot. A blanket wouldn’t hurt either.” The necromancer said and inspected a pouch of tobacco she had found.
“They need them just as much as you do. Just keep your hands in your pockets.” Gilbert protested.
Anastacia frowned and moved on to the next bag. “They can nuzzle together for warmth.” She suggested.
“So can we.” Gilbert laughed.
“In your dreams, meat. I’m having second thoughts about even letting you carry Emilia.” Anastacia said and pretended to gag. “None of these guys have anything useful on them, we might as well get a move on. Should I just kick them in the nuts to stop them from chasing us?” She asked.
“What? No!” Gilbert yelped and cringed in imaginary pain. “Seriously, what the fuck, Anna? You can’t do that.”
“Just a thought.” The necromancer shrugged and grabbed a torch from one of them before heading off.
Probably out of their debt to Gilbert for having saved their family jewels, the soldiers didn’t appear to follow the adventurers even after getting released by Anastacia, nor did they rush to report what had happened.
Finally free to head back to Valor, Anastacia impressed Gilbert by correctly figuring out the direction from the stars, which was definitely something she couldn’t usually do even on a good day. After a while, they had to stop so that Anastacia could fill her pockets with small rocks she had warmed up with fire magic, which staved off the cold for a while but was far from a great solution.
Though they still had more than enough water to make the trip back, hunger started to become a real issue for both of them when there was still a few hours of walking left, and because of that, they decided to make a quick camp to warm themselves up and hopefully catch something to eat.
With the shared efforts of Anastacia’s necromancy and young Gilbert’s limber movements, catching a small boar turned out to be barely an inconvenience. Happy that he actually for to wrestle with something before the curse wore off, Gilbert began to prepare the boar for cooking while Anastacia handled the fire itself.
Warming her extremities by the fire, for the first time since being cursed, Anastacia was somewhat happy. So far, her mood had ranged from angry to annoyed by everyone and everything, but something about sitting by the fire with her party made her calm down. Her headache had finally subsided as well, and the scent of the cooking meat was almost intoxicating.
“What’s that? Am I seeing a smile?” Gilbert asked and lit his pipe.
“Don’t ruin it. I’ve just realized something: before King tossed all of those pearls into a well, I happened to give few of them away to a certain owl. So I just have to ask for one back, go over to the guild offices, twist a couple of arms and have them do something to it.” The necromancer explained with a smug grin on her face.
Gilbert puffed a bit of smoke before responding. “Holly? What’d she need them for?”
“Who knows? Does anyone really know anything about her? Does she have a last name? Where is she from? Who does she live with?” Anastacia wondered and started fiddling with her new sword.
Gilbert had to stop and think for a while. “Nnnno… She just sort of appeared one night and started visiting the inn daily. She had no money, so Rosie started feeding her and she kept coming back, eventually it just turned into her job. Prying into people’s pasts is a bit frowned upon in Valor and she seemed to be in fine spirits, so no one questioned it.” He explained. “Either way, be nice to her.”
“Yeah. I’ve been wanting to hang out with her for a while now, just need to get a hold of her before she leaves in the morning.” Anastacia said and yawned. “So, while you start figuring out who the emblem belongs to, I’ll find out why there’s an absolutely gorgeous piece of machine ass stalking me – not that I’m complaining, of course.”
Gilbert laughed. “Aye. You do that.”
“Also…” Anastacia whispered and made sure Emilia was still out cold before leaning towards Gilbert. “See what you can find out about someone called ‘Pyria’. The baron called his mother that and Sylvia not telling Emilia about this is a bit suspicious.”
Gilbert nodded. “Good thinking. It’s not uncommon for a god to have more than one name, but it does feel fishy.” He agreed.
After that they fell quiet for a while again. Gilbert enjoyed his pipe and stoked the fire every now and then while Anastacia focused on keeping herself warm and looking out for any light blue lights in the distance, just in case she was being watched. In the end, the boar meat was barely cooked through despite getting almost charred on the outside, but that didn’t bother either of the adventurers who had hardly eaten during the day.
The wildlife in the area was relatively calm as well. At one point a single wolf or a wild dog wandered near the camp, only to move on soon after, and that was it for the night. They were close enough to Valor that bandits or the like weren’t a likely threat either, so both adventurers could be at ease. This relaxed feeling slowly turned into sluggishness and what had started as a quick break to eat something got extended by hours of simply sitting in silence, as neither Anastacia nor Gilbert felt like getting up.
“Oh, right, Xammy needs your help with the whole weightlessness thing.” Gilbert suddenly remembered his talk with the spriggan. “She’s planning a trip to the mother grove.”
The necromancer’s eyes opened wide as if she had just realized something. “Wouldn’t mind nailing her down, if that helps.” she grinned.
“Don’t do that. Rosie would toss her into the sky, and more importantly, she’d win all the money we’ve bet so far.” Gilbert revealed. “It’s literally the only thing she bet on, because of course it is.”
Anastacia laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll be a bumbling idiot with no idea how to express myself again as soon as this curse wears off. Honestly, regular Anastacia’s thoughts are mostly just complete confusion about everything, so it’s nice to have at least some of it cleared up, even if it’s temporary.”
“And I’ll thank any divine willing to take the credit for it being so. You’d be a terrifying person to go on a quest with.” Gilbert admitted. He couldn’t even imagine all the problems they would run into. “Suppose we would save time on unlocking doors though.”
“Hardy har har. I’ll be back in a few years, and you’ll be even older.” The necromancer threatened jokingly. “Speaking of which, is that a gray hair in your beard?”
Gilbert sighed. “Aye. It’s been going on for a while now. I can already feel my joints getting stiffer.” He lamented and stretched his back. “It was fun while it lasted, but how about we never talk about what young Gilbert was like?”
“Good luck with that.” Anastacia snickered. “It’ll take months for this to die down at the inn.”
Gilbert’s change back to his regular appearance and personality was far more gradual than the initial one, it took almost an hour for his beard and hair to go gray once more and about as long for him to gain back all the extra weight he had amassed over the years. For reasons only known by him and maybe Rosie, the old adventurer was oddly self-conscious about the thick mess of gray hair on his chest and back, so even though the cold still didn’t bother him, he regretted not packing a shirt along for the trip.
Because Gilbert’s recovery from the curse was far more apparent than Anastacia’s, he didn’t notice that the necromancer had fallen completely quiet at some point and was now blankly staring at the flames of the campfire. “Everything okay?” The old adventurer asked and waved to get her attention.
Even in the orange glow of the fire, it was apparent that Anastacia had turned completely red. “Just contemplating whether or not I should disappear into the woods, so I don’t have to live with the filth I’ve said and thought in the last couple of days.” She muttered without blinking at all for a disturbingly long time.
“So you’re back too, huh? I wouldn’t worry about it, the only people that know about all that stuff are Me, Emilia and the residents of a relatively large royal estate.” Gilbert laughed.
“NOOOOooooo…” Anastacia wailed and buried her face into her knees.
“Don’t act like you’re out of the woods yet either, Gil. There’s a certain little lamb waiting for you in Valor.” Emilia said suddenly and got up from the ground to look around and figure out where she was. “We’re out? Lady Sylvia said she needed to take the reins for a while, but looks like I’ve missed quite a lot…” She wondered with a bit of grogginess to her voice.
Gilbert joined Anastacia in blankly staring at the fire and took a slow, deep breath. “Shit… So, Anna, this escaping into the woods idea of yours, reckon we could hike for a while to get to a warmer climate and start farming some vegetables?” He joked, at least partly.