Whatever Lady Helia had grabbed onto was fighting back with some considerable determination and a few times it even looked like the Ouan would get pulled in entirely. The edges of the gap crumbled as she tried to use them for some extra support to make sure the tide of the tug of war didn’t change. Her razor-sharp claws sank deep into the wooden floor as well and even still they budged a few times.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but in reality, only lasted for a moment, Lady Helia straightened her wings and began rapidly flapping them, giving her the extra edge she needed and allowing her to drag her opponent from the fetid, festering realm.
As if it was some kind of a clogged sewer that had just been opened after years of piling up filth, copious amounts of black sludge rushed from the gap, drenching Lady Helia and spreading all over the great hall’s floor.
Strangely enough, none of the murky grime stuck on the reborn Ouan for long, as if she had been coated with wax, it slipped off her without so much as leaving a stain.
Both Anastacia and Teal retreated on top of the shattered remains of the furniture to stay off the layer of filth pooling up around them, but when Lumira attempted to do the same, some strange force kept pushing her back into the ooze.
No longer a stranger to necromancy, the dark elf stared frustratedly at the necromancers, both of whom pointed at each other to shift the blame.
“Perhaps it is time to ready your weapons?!” Lady Helia suggested with a voice thundering over the droning noise of her wings.
Anastacia grabbed one of her spears, pointed it at the gap and signaled her readiness. Teal held one of his remaining swords in his hand and the other mimicked its movements a bit closer to the gap.
First things to emerge from the gap were a pair of thin, dried arms with dark skin and long, chipped and cracked nails. They grasped onto the Ouan’s arm and were clearly trying to free their owner from her steeled grip to no avail.
Lining the mummified arms were dim green, vein-like lights, that pulsated seemingly without a pattern. Under the lights, the dry skin was littered with tattooed runes that were extremely similar to the ones used to ruin the carvings in the lodge. Both the lights and the runes crossed each other frequently and appeared wholly unrelated to one another.
With one more swift pull, Lady Helia extracted the rest of the being from the shadows and lifted it into her own radiance. Dangling from her fist, was no immensely powerful being of darkness nor a magical specter of discord. Instead, it was something far more unexpected; A mummified husk of roughly human shape and proportion, but with countless similarly dried arms and legs that ended in claws, paws, hooves, regular hands, tentacles and other bits and pieces of animals. Almost every hand that could do so, was grasping onto a rusty, broken weapon, but ultimately, every single one of the being’s extra limbs hanged down limply and appeared dead. Some were obviously broken or straight up cut off, others had grievous wounds on them that hadn’t healed, but rather just dried up along with the rest of the body.
Clad in a worn, decaying linen wrap, the rest of the carrion had fared no better, appearing completely lifeless when the Ouan dangled it by its neck. Several piercings and tattoos lined every inch of bare skin it had and both the matted, dry hair and the several wrists of the being were decorated with colorful clay and wood beads. If it wasn’t for the beef jerky-like state of the corpse, it would have definitely been quite a sight.
However, despite the repugnant form, the most eye-catching feature on the being was the origin of the pulsating veins of light; a mechanism of metal and stone attached to the corpse’s left shoulder and covering almost half of its face. Seemingly burned into the dried skin, the curious machine was covered in familiar-looking light patterns that spread from in onto the skin of the carcass, becoming duller and dimmer as they reached the ends of its limbs. As far as anyone could tell, it was the machine that empowered the two arms and forced the scream out of the corpse’s mouth while the rest of its face remained frozen in an emotionless state.
Lady Helia stared at the wretched thing she had dragged into the mortal world with no small amount of contempt and was trying to figure out what it was. “What are you?” She asked and frowned.
“Is that… a simulacrum?” Anastacia wondered out loud and lowered her spear. Handily being the group’s expert on the ancient automatons, she could recognize the patterns of light and the mix of metal and stone used in them.
“NO!” The corpse screeched, clearly being animated by the simulacrum attached to it. “I am the hag of the north, spirit of discord and the herald of where it all ends! Know your place beneath me, mortal, and stay your mouth!” It continued, making the sickly green lights on it flash and flicker on every word.
“Sure, sure, but you’re also a piece of jerky that’s stuck on a simulacrum.” The adventurer pointed out rather rudely.
The spirit screamed in rage and was about to respond to the insult, when the Ouan holding her had heard enough and proceeded to rip the shriveled remains in half with her claws. She threw the screaming upper body of the hag at a wall to silence it and dropped the disturbing assortment of feet into the pool of black liquid on the floor.
“Well, that was quick.” Anastacia shrugged as the screaming subsided and the lights on the simulacrum faded.
“The light is not to be denied.” Lady Helia said self-assuredly while wading towards the inquisitor and smiling slyly. “We are in luck, there is still time to bathe dearest Teal in radiance as well.”
While still awkwardly bright to look at, the Ouan’s form was most definitely fading rapidly and the temporal nature of it was clear. Though the brightness may not have been the reason the inquisitor’s gaze shied away in the first place.
Suddenly the all too familiar cackling filled the hall and the shadows in it strengthened more than ever, so much so that the light from the setting sun outside no longer reached inside. The walls disappeared from the hunters’ sight and soon enough, Lady Helia was the only point of reference still visible in the room – that is, until a silent hum accompanied the mocking laughter of the spirit filled the hall, and the green patterns of the simulacrum flickered on once more to slowly rise up from the muck the hag’s upper body had fallen in.
As the shadows waned, what they revealed was no longer a frail, mummified remains of an ancient being, but a woman made from living flesh and blood. The collection of extra limbs was gone, as was the burdensome simulacrum construct; replaced by the usual number of limbs for most people, and a smooth, featureless mask made from the same materials as the simulacra and covered in the same green lights that no longer spread to the rest of the hag’s body. What had remained were the tattooed runes, simple jewelry and the worn, white linen wrap that was loosely covering the hag’s light brown skin. Though she was on the more mature side of life, calling the woman ‘a hag’ seemed somewhat ill-fitting as she seemed like she had been quite a looker as a maiden, and still wasn’t anything to scoff at.
“You lot never learn.” The hag laughed and calmly walked on the surface of the liquid darkness, letting the cloth draped over her get dragged in it.
The hunters raised their weapons once more and aimed them at their revitalized opponent, but were stopped by the hag snapping her fingers and lifting her hand up slightly, which caused a rush of the black drivel to take form into a familiar shape: the missing maid and quite possibly the person responsible for the return of the hag.
The spirit of discord grabbed Stel by the neck and held the struggling girl up as a shield between herself and the hunters. “Mind your manners, children, or this sweet, sweet ball of deception and housekeeping will join the history she so eagerly studies.”
Anastacia was forced to lower her weapon, but both Teal and Lady Helia didn’t even flinch at the sight of Stel.
“Guys?” The adventurer said. “Let’s not harm Stel, okay?”
“Don’t really give a damn about that, in all honesty.” Teal admitted.
Helia agreed. “If resting the progenitor of this heresy with it is what we must do to end it, so be it.”
“Ohhh! Two against one! I knew of the inquisitor’s dark heart, but you too, honorable archfurion?” The hag laughed. “What will the adventurer do?”
Stel had spent most of her time on the useless struggle of freeing herself, but the hag’s grasp showed no signs of weakening, so she changed her tactics and addressed the hunters. “Anastacia! It’s not the ha-“ Was all she managed to say before gagging and starting to profusely vomit more of the black liquid that filled the floor.
“Could you not interrupt us?” The spirit asked as the maid vomited more and more each time she tried to speak. “Anastacia, you ever-present thorn in the side of all things, I finally have an offer for you! Let us make a trade, and a fair one at that! Let me strangle the life out of you with my own hands, and I will undo all of this! Those whose lives have been ended unjustly will return, the damage done to the politics will vanish into thin air and countless lives will be spared. I will personally return to my non-existence and wait for a better time, a time without you!”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Anastacia frowned. “A counteroffer: fuck off and I won’t force you to!” She suggested rather predictably.
While everyone else was busy with the hostage situation, Lumira had been somewhat forgotten, almost like she wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. Even the hag didn’t acknowledge the dark elf in any way and carelessly left room for a straight shot at her without having to endanger the maid. The vice commander didn’t particularly adore Stel as a person and wouldn’t have hesitated to sacrifice her if that meant defeating the hag, but in her mind, both Stel and her were in the same mess and at least partly together. So when she could feel the shattered blade of one of Teal’s swords in the muck under her foot, she chose to make her move to save the obnoxious maid.
With a single swift and horrifyingly accurate throw, the shard of metal found itself embedded into the hag’s neck. It must have split an artery, as the amount of blood rushing from the wound would have no doubt killed a regular person in seconds, yet it only appeared to annoy the hag, who slowly turned to the dark elf and pulled the piece of blade from its throat.
The hag was about to say something but made the crucial mistake of turning away from Anastacia and creating an opening for the adventurer. The punishment for it was dished out promptly in the form of a spear that essentially liquified the hag’s entire upper body and turned the wooden wall behind it into a window as it ripped through the air.
The maid fell into the black mess below her with the remnants of the hag’s arm still strangling her. She splashed around for a few seconds before managing to tear the severed hand off her throat, but between the vomiting and trying to gasp for breath she wasn’t able to do much.
Lady Helia spring into action and leaped to the maid’s aid, grabbing Stel by the clothes and using her new wings to swiftly retreat into the relative safety near the other two hunters.
“Despite our wisest of judgements, we have saved your maid, necromancer adventurer Anastacia. Consider this a favor of the highest order.” The Ouan said and tossed Stel into the sludge in front of the adventurer.
Before they had the time to do anything else, the black goop rushed up the hag’s still standing legs, and quickly formed into a new upper body for her.
“Fine then! Let us throw away the niceties and engage in brutish combat.” The spirit sighed and clapped her freshly regrown hands.
From the shadows around her, rose the final beast of ruin; the ancestral bear.
Large, even for a grizzly, the beast was covered in mossy, unkept fur that was riddled with an assortment of weaponry that had gotten stuck in its thick hide. It was armed with claws as big as daggers and a pair of massive canine teeth that appeared more like blades of a scythe with a strange metallic shine to them.
The hag placed her hand on its head, gently patted it like anyone would do to their pet and said something in an ancient language that likely had no other speakers in the world – Stel could pick up a word here and there from her copious amounts of research, but was in no condition to even attempt translating.
The beast appeared to heed her word and locked its glowing red eyes onto the inquisitor, it growled a few times and started to slowly circle him.
Teal had known his turn was up next and hopped down into the sludge. “How to kill this?” He asked from Stel.
“Ax-“ Was all the maid managed to say before another gush of black vomit forced its way out of her throat.
“There’s an axe in the weapon pile in my room, want me to get it?” Anastacia suggested, remembering the weapon gifted to her by the forge master upon his arrival to the lodge.
Teal shook his head and spun his swords. “Predetermined opponents, must lure it out of the way and see what can be done. Stay and deal with the hag and protect the… well.” He sneered and dashed into the staircase leading to the guestrooms.
The ancestral bear rushed after him, lumbering up the stairs, making some of the crack and splinter under its immense mass.
Diving into Anastacia’s room and hastily picking up the axe from the pile of weapons mostly confiscated from Magnon, Teal hoped he would have enough time to escape the room before the oversized bear could catch up to him, but when he turned around, he could already see its red eyes on the other side of the door.
The beast slowly pushed its corpulent form through the doorframe, effortlessly shattering it to accommodate its size.
Cornered and armed with a measly axe that started to feel wholly inadequate for felling such a beast, the inquisitor backed towards the shattered window and considered jumping out, but his chances in the deep snow were no better than his current ones.
“Guess it’s worth the try…” He muttered and flung the axe at the bear.
Surprisingly enough, the axe hit the beast’s skull blade first and buried itself in it, but the ancestral bear was no normal ursine and its thick skull withstood the blow. Though the weapon lodged into its face didn’t appear to hinder the beast, it certainly didn’t appreciate the gesture. After letting out a terrifying roar, it charged at full speed towards its opponent, ramming aside the king size bed like it was nothing.
Barely in time, Teal leaped to the side and avoided the beast’s claws so narrowly that they actually scraped his boots. His successful dodge sent the bear barreling through the window into the snow below, where it voiced its annoyance with a roar.
Marveling in his temporary victory, the inquisitor peered down at the bear, but was a bit disheartened to see it effortlessly bury its claws into the wall and start climbing back up. He darted out of the room in search of more advantageous arena where he wouldn’t get cornered as easily.
As he ran past the guest’s rooms, Teal realized something strange; Magnon and Ilyu were gone, as were the servants and the guild official from the floors above them. Even the corpses stored in the cellar didn’t appear to be there anymore. He could tell that the problem wasn’t with his necromancy, as he could still feel the people in the great hall.
Since he didn’t have the time to politely knock, he kicked open the door to Ilyu’s room to see if it was really empty. Unfortunately, it was just as he had worried, the diplomats had both vanished completely, leaving no clues or traces behind.
When he looked at the situation with a bit more focus, he realized something even stranger; his allies were the only things he could feel. Usually there were rodents, pieces of meat in the kitchen, insects and birds going about at all times, so much so that they often blended into the background unless one specifically focused on them, but now there was nothing.
“This… might not be real.” He wondered and touched the doorframe on his way out of the room, just to make sure it was there.
His musing was left short lived, however, as the ancestral bear crashed through a wall into the hallway and sought out its target once more.
Running around like a coward felt extremely wrong to the inquisitor, since it was pretty much exactly what he shouldn’t have done, but admittedly, when honing his craft, he hadn’t really considered the possibility of an ancient unstoppable spirit-bear being one of the things he would end up fighting with next to no equipment.
In all honesty, the enforcers of Mournvalley’s new regime were somewhat unfamiliar with things that were immune to necromancy. Their great library likely contained more than enough knowledge on the matter, but mere months were not enough for the scribes to organize all of it and much less put it to good use.
There was, however, a single necromancer who was more apt at dealing with such things than anyone else, and though it brought him great shame, ‘what would Anastacia do?’ was the thought the proud inquisitor was forced to rely on.
“What is the stupidest possible thing to do?” He asked out loud while racing down the hallway, and like a miracle, an idea worthy of Anastacia’s name came to him out of nowhere.
As Teal ran around a corner, he noticed that a single guestroom door was open. Lady Helia must have left hers unlocked in her hurry and whatever abandoned imitation they had been cast into had copied it as well. The inquisitor slipped inside and quietly closed the door, hoping his pursuer would blindly barrel past it and give him a bit of time to look for what he needed.
The Ouan’s luggage was still neatly placed by the end of her bed and had barely been disturbed since the guests had arrived. Teal opened the small trunk among them and began going through its contents. What he really needed was a belt, but almost anything that could be used to tie things together would work.
Though rummaging through other people’s belongings was a reoccurring part of his job, something about it felt especially awkward this time, possibly because who the luggage belonged to.
Setting aside spare uniforms and other garments, the inquisitor failed to find anything that resembled a belt and had to make do with some kind of a slightly stretchy tube of fabric he didn’t recognize.
“A sock maybe?” He wondered out loud, but since the odd piece of cloth didn’t explode as it was named, it almost certainly wasn’t a sock.
Whatever it was, it had to do as time was something the inquisitor didn’t have an excess of. He carefully opened the door, only to be immediately spotted by the beast that had been sniffing the air nearby after losing its target.
The next part of his self-admittedly idiotic plan would be the most difficult; he needed to retrieve the axe stuck on the ancestral bear’s skull.
“Bear?” He tried just in case, but it appeared to have no effect on the beast. However, as the ancient being began gathering speed once more, he realized there was something he could use his curse on. The array of weapons stuck to the beast’s back contained dozens of arrows, broken spears, swords and other pointy bits that had rusted and melted into the bear’s skin itself. “Arrow.” The inquisitor whispered and was relieved to see one of the snapped arrows explode, sending shrapnel inside the bear and clearly hindering its charge.
Teal took a deep breath and began rapidly naming the weapons, each one removing a sizeable chunk of meat from the sturdy creature. By the time he had to dodge the charge, a large portion of the beast’s body was missing and its movement could hardly be called a charge anymore. With a bit of effort, the inquisitor could parry the swipe from the massive paw and get his hands on the axe, which took a considerable amount of force to dislodge.
As the beast’s regenerative abilities kicked in and the muscles began to sew themselves together, Teal chopped off the axe’s wooden handle with one of his swords and shoved the pommel of the more chipped one through the hole for the handle. Since it only fit through rather snugly, the axe head gripped tightly on its new handle. While the new handle was a bit on the sharp side for convenient felling of trees, it did contain bone and allowed Teal to get some real power behind his swings. To finish his unholy amalgamation of axe and sword, he tied the pieces together with the mysterious piece of fabric and cringed at the sight of his creation.
With his last remaining sword in hand, the inquisitor stood in the middle of the corridor and slowly spun around the axe in the air while watching the bear get back up on its feet. “Welcome to the edge of your world.” He smiled and dragged the tip of his sword across the wooden floor to draw a line.
The bear stood up on its hind legs and roared in what was probably an attempt to discourage the inquisitor, but the inquisitorial sentinel was back in his element and done with running for good. It didn’t take long for even the beast to understand this, and once more begin to gather speed behind his immense weight.
Without so much as a blink, Teal raised his axe and brought it down on the unfortunate creature of dark. Though the ancestral bear was massive even for its species, it was a far cry from the first of the beasts the hunters felled together, and so the force of the inquisitor’s weapon was enough to stop it more or less immediately and flatten it against the floor.
Bones crunched and floorboards creaked as the beast’s charge halted abruptly and the axe once more sank into its forehead – only this time it carried on through it, and through the rest of the skull as well.
Teal rested his hands on the pommel of his sword and smiled calmly as the ancestral bear faded into dust. “The Children of Coquelicot send their regards.” He said, hoping the hag heard him.