As the inquisitor dashed upstairs with the last of the beasts in tow, Lady Helia had taken it upon herself to face the hag. Anastacia certainly didn’t mind it, as she was down to her last spear and beyond that her fighting prowess was far below that of even the vice commander’s. With her staff gone, ice magic was out of the question and the number of times Gilbert had told her to not use fire magic inside wooden buildings for obvious reasons had finally gotten through to her. All the adventurer could really do was to get Stel back on her feet and attempt to protect her while the Ouan saw to the spirit.
However, as the minutes slowly passed and Lady Helia kept tearing into the hag, it started to become abundantly clear that no matter how many times she tore her opponents to pieces, melted her with acid or scorched her with the radiant light she emitted, the spirit of discord would reform in a blink of an eye with absolutely no signs of weakening. What made the situation worse was the Ouan’s gradual loss of power; starting out as the obviously stronger of the combatants, with each blow she inflicted upon her opponent she lost some of her might. Similarly, every time the hag’s slanders and insults took physical form in whips and lashes of pure shadow, they became more and more burdensome for Lady Helia to shrug off.
“Finally, I understand what is wrong with the mortals of this age; a dire lack of knowledge! So a lesson in what light truly is, fair archfurion. A wisdom from the ages long past that I am willing to part with.” The spirit laughed as the Ouan was forced to stand back and catch her breath. “Consider a lantern, a candle, a bonfire; the light shed by them is no different from the one you consider so divine and pure. Yet, the light from them is no source of power, no object of worship, it is the admittedly useful side effect of fuel being drained; and you fair archfurion, are nothing if not the most valiant piece of tinder out there! However, that is hardly my point. What happens when the lantern runs out of fuel, the candle reaches its end, the last pieces of firewood are thrown into the bonfire? The fire wanes, the warmth departs and the light dims. For that is the truth behind light; it is temporary, a blink of noise in the vast darkness that is this world.” She explained as thin threads of darkness climbed up the chitinous armor of Lady Helia and wrapped around her beautiful wings, pulling on them until, one by one, they cracked from the base and fell uselessly into the sludge.
Too tired to retaliate properly, the Ouan could only shake the threads off herself and claw away whatever stronger vines were trying to overrun her while screaming in agony.
“There is no great age of light in our future, no cleansing brightness will rid the world from its shadows.” The hag continued with a tone resembling that of a teacher’s who was trying to explain something simple to a dimwitted student. “It may push aside the cover of darkness for a while, but that is all there is to it.”
Anastacia followed the battle from the sidelines, ready to intervene if the situation absolutely called for it, but what she could do was to try her best to interrogate Stel for any possible means to kill the hag for good.
Though, ‘interrogation’ may not have been the word to use, as the maid was in no way reluctant to divulge what she knew but was simply unable to do so. Any time she opened her mouth to speak, nothing but gallons of pitch-black liquid rushed out. This had been going on for a while already, and the miserable state it had driven the maid into was starting to catch on to the adventurer.
Stel floated on her back in the pool of filth she no longer cared about, every now and then opening her mouth to throw up with a blank, extremely tired expression on her face. What little makeup the other maids had convinced her to use had spread all over her face by both tears and whatever dark things she was spewing from her mouth.
Both Anastacia and Lumira had tried their hand at shaking the answers out of the maid, but had failed all the same and had by now been driven to the same apathy as Stel herself. Feeling powerless to really do anything, they watched as the tide of the fight slowly turned against them and nervously waited for the hag’s attention to turn to them as well.
Clutching onto her final spear, the adventurer focused to see how Teal was faring and quickly made the same observations as the inquisitor; something was wrong with their surroundings. The complete and utter lack of all material felt somehow artificial to the necromancer. She had walked through a desert and even there, an ample selection of bugs was available, so she quickly made the connection to the realm of night she had recently gone through.
“I think there’s a chance that instead of us dragging the hag out into the world, we were dragged into hers.” Anastacia theorized out loud.
Stel immediately sprang up and yelped excitedly. She pointed at the adventurer and nodded excessively, showing support to the theory.
“Oh, really? Why didn’t you say so.” The adventurer smirked tiredly.
A sudden scream of agony interrupted them. Lady Helia had pinned the hag against the wall with the last ounces of her strength, but that had quickly backfired as the black blood flowing from the hag’s wounds had formed spikes that pierced the Ouan’s natural armor.
Knowing it was probably time to intervene or Lady Helia would continue bashing herself at the hag until completely exhausting herself, Anastacia leaped down from the piece of table she had perched herself on and dashed to the Ouan’s aid.
“Hey! Ancient hot stuff! We need to talk.” The adventurer yelled and splashed the filth with her spear to get the hag’s attention.
Both Lady Helia and the hag stopped what they were doing and turned to Anastacia.
“By the shadows, what now?...” Asked the spirit, obviously already dreading for what was to come.
“I thought we had, you know, a thing going on. What happened to that?” The adventurer asked. She knew that the fight between her and the hag would likely end quickly, but any time she could buy by running her mouth would be invaluable. Luckily that was very much in her repertoire.
The spirit pushed aside her previous opponent and stared down at the necromancer. “What…” She sighed.
“Well you know…” The adventurer implied, raised her brow a few times and showed her leg a bit from under her cloak. “Now that you’re physically here.”
The hag struggled to find words for what was happening. Even through the mask, her tired expression was visible.
“Take me, oh ancient one!” Anastacia gasped and fell into the spirit’s arms.
The hag understandably pushed her away. “What is going on? What are you doing? Explain!” She asked.
“Well, you’re the one that reads minds. Surely you can read mine.” Giggled the adventurer.
“Yes, and it is worrying.” The spirit admitted and took a step away. “Please, cease this, for all our sakes.”
“Why don’t you seize this?” Anastacia asked and slowly brushed her hand down her body.
The following awkward silence was deep and long enough to possibly give birth to a spirit of awkward silences. The disbelief over what was happening and the success it was having was so intense that it could almost be felt as a primal energy, rivaling whatever ancient magics had been used to construct the realm they were in.
With no solutions in sight, the adventurer kept digging the hole she had started. “What’s wrong? You said that we’re two of a kind, so it only makes sense that we belong together.”
“I merely meant that as beings of chaos. Truly, your ability to defy even me shows that, but you have clearly misunderstood more than a fair bit.” The spirit tried to explain to no avail, as Anastacia threw herself into her arms again. “Are you even of age?”
“So if I am, you’re in?” The adventurer grinned and caressed the hag’s stone mask.
Lady Helia had been at a loss of words as she watched what was unfolding in front of her. Finally, she had reached her limit and groaned in agony. “Could you just end us all already? We feel watching this… godless scene, to be more condemning to our eternal soul than whatever unholy filth you can usher forth, crone.” She pleaded, not as jokingly as Anastacia would have wanted.
However, before the adventurer had the chance to tell how genuinely insulted she was, the sound of calm footsteps from the staircase leading up to the guestrooms interrupted her. Teal stepped into the filth with his sword resting on one of his shoulders and the abomination of weaponry on the other.
He frowned slightly at the sight of Anastacia being rather lovingly held by the spirit of discord, before speaking up. “Shame really, losing that curse of yours. It would have been an amazing weapon to have in my line of work, but it is what it is.” He laughed, putting heavy emphasis on the words that would have triggered the curse. “Luckily, that also gave me a bit of an excuse to take a look at the carvings once more and have a good think while Lady Helia and Anastacia did what I sincerely hope is just buying time.”
Still, likely unintentionally, holding on to the adventurer who had moved on to playing with the hag’s hair, the spirit of discord laughed madly. “So you have defeated the last beast of ruin, as you should have, but nothing you could have learned is enough to save you hunters again. I will have my revenge!”
Teal calmly walked over to the vice commander and with a single swift motion of his sword, cut off the dark elf’s thick and now fairly disheveled braid. As it unraveled in the air, several metallic beads fell off the strands of silvery hair and into the pond of filth on the floor. The inquisitor caught one and inspected it. Hammered into the surface of the iron bead, were runes eerily similar to the ones the carvings were vandalized with.
Both Lumira and the hag flinched as the inquisitor swung his sword, former over the obvious fear of being suddenly relieved from having a head on her shoulders and the latter for reasons only Teal had realized.
“You see, I went through a fair bit of the increasingly desperate research notes that mentioned you and the trinket you use to attain immortality, one that a certain aspiring researcher believed she had recovered.” The inquisitor explained and pointed his sword at Stel. “Now, instead of doing the decent thing and warning her employer about an assassination plot she had learned of by reading a diary that had been left open, this researcher went on to use the trinket to lure the spirit of discord into this world.”
Lumira stared at the drenched maid in her feet with a mix of disbelief and amazement, even though she had gathered some of the inquisitor’s theory by herself as well, at no point has she considered that Stel would be coldblooded enough to knowingly take advantage of the murders.
From the countless times Stel had recounted her preferred version of the hunters’ tale to her, Lumira could remember that the hag of the north gained her immortality and grotesque form a series of enchanted beads that had to be chained together by a strand of hair and dispelled by letting them fall to the ground. What she had thought to be a simple but slightly strange gift from the maid, had turned out to be a part of a plot more devious than even her own.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“So, based on your reaction, I’d guess you are quite killable now.” Teal addressed the hag and nodded at Anastacia, who didn’t seem to understand his suggestion. Teal rolled his eyes and whispered. “Spear?”
“Ohhhh!” Anastacia realized and rolled out of the hag’s embrace. “I’m sorry, but you had you chance to be enthralled by my womanly wiles.” Anastacia shrugged as she quickly aimed her last spear and launched it before the spirit could say anything.
Being so close to the impact, the adventurer was launched a few meters backwards as the spear turned the hag into lumps of gore.
The victorious grin on Teal’s face washed away in a record time, when the darkness once more brought the spirit of discord back to life, like what he had done hadn’t affected anything.
Awkward silence filled the room once more as the hag herself appeared confused. She ran her hands along her body and made sure every part of it was still where it should have been.
“Teal?” Anastacia said and slowly backed away. “Why isn’t she dead?!”
“I don’t know! The carving emphasized the beads so I assumed it would work!” The inquisitor panicked and rushed to safeguard Lady Helia, who as still weakening and wounded.
The hag stared at her own hands in silence for a while. “Why am I not dead?” She asked and looked at Stel for an explanation for some reason, dispelling the torturous curse of vomiting she had suffered from.
After coughing up the residual darkness from her throat, the maid stood up. “You know exactly why; you are not the hag!” She revealed. “You are nothing but a simulacrum, playing the part while leeching power and memories from her remains!”
“WHAT?!” Anastacia yelled. “How are we supposed to kill her then?”
“You probably can’t. We can’t reach its physical body from this realm, and as long as that persists, so does this place – I think, there’s no mention of any of this in my books.” Stel said, still gagging slightly.
“NO! I AM THE SPIRIT OF DISCORD!” The hag, or the thing that had her appearance screamed and lunged towards Teal, who happened be the closest to her.
The inquisitor sliced her in two and prepared for what was going to be a long battle of attrition, or simply unwinnable.
Completely unbothered by the scattered books and the massive tipped over bookcases around him, Strawberry signed the last piece of paperwork from his pile. He had worked on them tirelessly despite the ruckus audible from the lower floors and the massive explosion that demolished the entire library around him, without as much as considering checking up on what was going on. As far as the guild was considered, Anastacia had been brought there to deal with whatever was happening, and he had no reason to intervene or help.
Particularly proud of the absurdly ambiguous legal nonsense he had crammed the last form full of, he placed it on top of a thick pile of papers he had worked on during the day. “That’s the necromancer’s 444-2-c sorted; I don’t see why she would request one though.” He muttered and tied the stack with a purple thread.
He had attempted to ask for some details about it, but the moment had seemed inopportune so some addendums would probably need to be made, but there was plenty of time for that on the way back to Valor.
“I think the inquisitor was still alive, I should ask for a statement from him.” The official reasoned to himself. The folder for paperwork relating to Mournvalley in the vaults of the guild was barren at best, so anything relating to necromancers would be a great addition to it.
Even though Strawberry wasn’t prepared to lift a finger to aid in the matter of solving the murder of Nikolai, or whatever commotion had been going on earlier, he saw no issues diving into unknown danger to acquire some rare intel for the guild.
Picking up his favorite backup backup quill and a stack of fresh paper, he left the library and headed towards the great hall. After the first flight of stairs, the official took a detour by the guestrooms just in case someone in there had something to say.
The hole in the floor of the corridor, made by Lady Helia, caused him to stop briefly. “Structural damage caused by acid – noted. Hole diameter, eighty-seven centimeters, well over the accepted limit set by the standard 74201, Anastacia may be entitled to tax deduction for hazardous working environment.” He noted and carried on.
Politely knocking on the adventurer’s door first, Strawberry entered the empty room and looked at the broken window disapprovingly. “Housing conditions do not meet the agreed upon standards. Request improvements from the client.” He commented before his eyes hit the pile of drenched clothes on the floor. As they bared the guild’s colors, he was compelled to straighten them and check the condition. “Notification of reduction in payment: a guild formal uniform, standard female ‘Meadow’ pattern, small – ruined beyond repair. Personal note: consider bringing up the possibility of addition of a standard female combat pattern ‘Anastacia’. Durable materials, easier movement and above all else, easy to clean.”
Having still not found anyone, the guild official peeked into the vice commander’s room, but wasn’t willing to deal with the mess there, as it was in no way the guild’s business to worry about the condition of a Vassundian officer’s personal room.
Finally, he carefully descended to the great hall. Though it was quiet, the off-putting smell of the foul sludge that covered the floor was quick to hit someone who hadn’t stood around in it for a while. The pungent odor of a corpse that had been stored in a sealed container for centuries was almost too much to bear, and Strawberry considered retreating again, but ended up pressing onwards as it, unfortunately, was in the guild’s best interests.
He pulled up his trouser legs and stepped into the muck to get a better look at the hall. “Structural damage on the outside wall, consistent with… Anastacia. Complete loss of furniture in the great hall as well as- let’s call it extensive water damage. Neither fall within the guild’s responsibilities to replace.” He listed off the havoc his adventurer had caused. “Intense damage to all structures following an earthquake or an expl-“ He paused as his eyes happened upon the shriveled corpse of the hag and the simulacrum attached to it, both lifelessly lying in the sludge.
“Oh? A wayward sibling, still functional, as is to be expected.” He noted to himself. “Attached to a deceased female Aureun, possibly an exiled one.” The official continued and kneeled to take a better look at the simulacrum. “A scribe form, early ones by the looks of it. According to identification patterns, produced by Demented Memory.”
For a while, Strawberry stared into the nothingness, as if waiting for something, until suddenly the crystalline horn on his forehead flashed briefly.
“Of no consequence then? Oh well, can’t wait for the necromancer to get attached to this one and drag it back with us.” He joked dryly and by exerting all of his physical might, rolled over the corpse to extract the cylinder-shaped core from the simulacrum, immediately killing the sickly green lights on it.
Only seconds later, Anastacia, Teal, Lady Helia, Stel and Lumira appeared to pop up from thin air and fell into the black grime. All five of them were visibly exhausted and both Teal and Lady Helia were somewhat injured.
Anastacia looked around frantically until she spotted the guild official. “Strawberry!” She rejoiced. “You wonderful asshat!”
The adventurer hugged Strawberry as hard as she could, smearing the filth on her clothes on him before smacking the papers he was holding into the sludge.
“Why?” The guild official sighed.
The adventurer didn’t even have an answer beyond a quick shrug. She then ran over to Lumira and proceeded to present her to Strawberry. “Behold, I have revealed who the murderer was!” She said proudly and then pointed at Stel. “The maid’s an asshole too and needs to get locked up. Oh and those two might bleed out in a while if someone doesn’t do something.”
With their clothes changed, Lumira sufficiently locked up, Teal and Helia’s wounds addressed and Vassundian authorities from a nearby town alerted. Anastacia sat in the kitchen, across the table from Stel and took a sip of still very much poisoned coffee.
The maid shivered in place as Anastacia stared intensely at her while possibly making a lot of decisions regarding Stel’s punishment based entirely on the quality of the coffee she could make.
“I can not believe you would still have her make coffee for you…” Strawberry commented while waiting to transcribe the conversation.
“Someone has to.” The adventurer shrugged. “But lets just start. First and foremost, Stel, what the fuck?”
“Is… is the coffee not good?” The maid asked worriedly.
“Not the problem. What I mean is why would you allow two murders to take place and then summon an ancient spirit that could very possibly have killed us all.” Anastacia specified and took another sip.
“Oh… Well, since you’ve been in my room, you probably know that I’m trying to become a scholar, the kind that people take seriously.” Stel began explaining. “The world of scholars is a harsh place, and no one would take my theories seriously, no matter how much I backed them up with well-sourced texts. That is, until someone called scribe Laurenth wrote to me. I couldn’t find anything he had written, but he obviously had immense amounts of knowledge on the sorts of things I theorized about. We exchanged a few letters over the months and at one point he suggested that I should get some actual proof.”
Anastacia rubbed her forehead. “Proof of what exactly?”
“That Cottona became a goddess.” Stel said excitedly. “What he suggested was summoning Cottona’s worst enemy into the mortal world so she could once again come and defeat the hag. It has happened a few times before! For example, when Gorevald woke up the blind dragon and Emerelium Shura sent down a blazing arrow from-“
Anastacia interrupted her before the story got out of hand yet again. “That’s your excuse then? You sacrificed Nikolai and endangered everyone else on the off chance some ancient tart became a god and was somehow willing to hop on down here to whoop the hag’s ass again? I’ve done some sketchy stuff myself, but that’s a bit much.”
“I’m not proud of it, if that helps?” Stel sighed and shook her head. “I worked day and night to go through every other option I had, spent all my savings on old tomes and but there was nothing that confirmed or outright denied it! At the time, discovering a link between this place and a deity felt worth risking a few lives for. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but after you fail miserably countless times, judging risks becomes difficult – after all, I was entirely willing to die with you if this didn’t work.”
“Well it didn’t. You didn’t get an answer to anything, hopefully it doesn’t seem worth it anymore.” The adventurer scolded Stel.
“No… The hag is dead for good, there’s no bringing her back. Whatever that thing attached to her was, kept puppeteering her powers and insisted on being the hag herself.” Stel explained. “It kept asking what I knew about the hag, and whenever I told it something, it acted like it had known it all along and denied ever asking me.”
Anastacia emptied her cup and glanced at the unpowered simulacrum she had torn off the dried mummy. “Yeah, I’ll take her with me and find out what I can.”
“No, you won’t.” Strawberry commented, knowing exactly how pointless his objection was.
“Fuck off, Strawberry. I’ll take it with me and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve already got King and he’s way more dangerous than she is. Poor thing doesn’t even have legs!” The adventurer hissed in response.
Suddenly a sharply dressed dark elf knocked on the doorframe of the kitchen’s open door. Wearing a uniform very similar to one Lumira used, he was obviously whoever high-ranking officer Strawberry was able to contact by sending out the guild guard, and had arrived to the lodge with a handful of soldiers only a few hours after the defeat of the simulacrum hag.
He bowed politely to both Strawberry and Anastacia before speaking. “I am lieutenant commander Lucid, Vassundian Militaria Arctos. My men and I have taken custody of the traitorous vice commander and have come to politely ask for the other culprit to be handed over to us. Is your interrogation complete?” He asked very carefully as to not step on the adventurer’s toes.
“Sure. I have no use for further answers, barely needed the ones I got.” Anastacia nodded.
Stel was led out of the kitchen by two of the soldiers the lieutenant commander had brought along. Anastacia felt ever so slightly bad for the maid and was happy to see that she wasn’t manhandled in anyway, at least not in her direct sight.
The lieutenant commander bowed once more and was about to leave when Anastacia grabbed his sleeve.
“Say, do you know an old researcher by the name of Mikhail Grenn?” The adventurer asked.
The officer frowned. “Why of course I know Master Grenn. Is he an acquaintance of yours?” He asked.
“Sort of, he happened to give me something called a ‘royal blessing’ some months ago, and I was wondering if I could use it now?” Anastacia explained. She didn’t have the written paper or the token that came with it but hoped that simply her name would be enough. “The name is Anastacia, if that helps?”
The officer immediately removed his hat and straightened his posture. “You are, the ‘Anastacia’?! Why yes of course! My regiment doesn’t have much to offer during this time of the year, but we will do whatever we can.” He said and commanded the two soldiers who were escorting Stel to take off their headwear as well.
“Uhh… I was thinking if it was possible to have Stel be able to continue doing research in sort of a home arrest type of an arrangement? I don’t see her faring well in a prison.” Anastacia asked awkwardly.
The dark elf officer seemed confused. “Miss, you are asking if you can use a royal blessing to slightly alter the punishment of a single prisoner?” He confirmed.
“Ye… yes? Is it not enough?” The adventurer worried and glanced at Strawberry, who was quite obviously speechless over what was happening, enough so that the quill in his hand had stopped.
“Miss Anastacia. Pardon me, but I think it is in order to explain you what a royal blessing is. Traditionally, they are used to have Vassund join a war on the side of your choosing or dethrone a monarch of a lesser nation.” The officer said, now extremely nervous over accidentally insulting the adventurer in the slightest. “What you are asking is trivial in comparison and can be arranged as if you had just ordered a glass of water. Of course, the blessing granted to you remains in your use, so that you can call upon our nation when you truly need us. All I ask is that you mention me favorably in the future, should you find yourself on Vassundian soil once more.”