Ever since letting her hair grow past her shoulders again, Anastacia had stopped bothering to fully dry it after a bath. Instead she simply wrapped a towel around her head haphazardly and hoped it would take care of it. It rarely did, and the most noticeable effect it had was the increase in the number of towels spread around the inn, wherever she happened to forget them to. It had gotten bad enough to warrant an intervention from Rosie more than once but bringing the problem to the light had solved precisely nothing.
Though the fate of the towel on her head at the time was still uncertain, she had at least made it back to her room with it after her bath with King. Feeling fresh and finally in a clean set of clothes, she sat down on her bed and stared at her collection of simulacra.
King, also with a towel around his head for no other reason than Anastacia having a childish sense of humor at times, stood by the door and dripped water into a small puddle that had formed around his feet. Anastacia had given him a quick rinse to get most of the dirt off, but he wouldn’t be quite clean enough for her standards before she’d get a few hours to go through the nooks and crannies in his armor with proper tools for it.
Furthest from the door was the recently named Leggy, who had been barred from joining the bath by King but had patiently waited in the necromancer’s room for their return. She had quickly recovered from her previous stupor after the lump of meat inside her had bitten Anastacia and presumably drank a drop of her blood.
From her firsthand experience with the simulacrum technology, the adventurer knew that it could be activated by sticking a finger in the socket meant for the core, so she had guessed that whatever the secret meatball inside Leggy was, it was powering her, and perhaps the meatball had simply required a bit of a pick-me-up to continue working. Regardless, the cloaked simulacrum seemed intent to remain with Anastacia for the time being, despite the very obvious threat to her safety that was the extremely jealous King.
The third of the simulacra was the inactive lump of parts Anastacia had nicknamed ‘Spirit’ in her head, but had decided to wait until the simulacra themselves gave his opinion on the matter, since he appeared to be the first one that could do so without an inconvenient amount of pantomime no one had the time or patience for. Being the smallest of the three, Spirit only weighed about as much as Anastacia, but a quick inspection would reveal quite a few cracked parts in it, suggesting that what remained was simply a part of some larger construct that had broken down over the years, decades and centuries.
Unlike with Leggy, the socket for Spirit’s core was apparent immediately and located in what Anastacia figured was the front side of the construct. The entire simulacrum was shaped like an oversized pauldron, that covered a large portion of the wearer’s chest, neck and face as well. He had next to no moving parts left on him and without someone to carry him on their shoulder, Spirit was definitely immobile.
The part of Spirit that would be pressed against his wearer’s body was trimmed with a comb-like metal piece that Anastacia had to cut off from the hag’s skin with a knife, as if the simulacrum had latched on by burning into the skin. This made her extremely hesitant to tell King to lift Spirit on her shoulder to see what would happen.
Taking out one of the cores King had collected, she stopped for a while. “Should we be doing this inside?” She doubted her decision to activate Spirit, but ultimately simply shrugged and slotted core in regardless.
Last time she had seen the simulacrum active, the lines of light on him had been sickly green instead of the usual light blue the rest of the simulacra and the machine fortresses had running on their surfaces, but when Spirit was once more brough to life, the color was somewhere between the two and somehow only faintly lit.
Anastacia had no way of telling if there were different kinds of cores and the one she had arbitrarily chosen was somehow weak or maybe even damaged, but tearing it out and trying another one seemed like a horrible thing to do. She tapped on the core to make sure it was at least properly in place, but that appeared to have no effect.
“Hello again.” The necromancer greeted the simulacrum. “Can you speak without being attached to someone?” She asked and waited silently, even holding her breath for a while, just in case.
For the first twenty seconds there was no answer at all, but just as Anastacia was about to say something else, she heard an echo. An echo not from the machine itself, but from the back of her head – just like when the hag had spoken to her before meeting the hunters face to face. However, the voice it spoke in was very different; neither male or female, smooth or rough, the voice defied description to a point it was hard to tell if it was a voice to begin with, or simply Anastacia’s own thoughts voicing a message from someone.
This message was a single word. “Where?” It echoed as the lights on Spirit’s body further flickered and their hue drifted more and more towards the usual blue as it drained the ancient powers left on him by the hag’s corpse.
“I brought you with me to Valor. We’re in my room with some of my friends.” Anastacia answered and sat down on the floor, next to Spirit.
“Where… Saajatar?” The question repeated with an additional word.
The necromancer frowned. “I have no idea what that is. A name? A place? A food?” She guessed blindly.
As the green shade further depleted from its lights, the simulacrum’s words became whispers. “Go back… please…” he struggled to say.
“Back to Vassund? They don’t exactly want you there. If I hadn’t taken you with me, you would have been dismantled and studied.” The adventurer explained and placed a hand on the worn stone surface of Spirit.
Right before his lights returned to the usual color, Spirit sent out one more word that mortified its only hearer. “Alone…” He gasped and fell quiet for good.
Suddenly and inexplicably overcome by the utter despair conveyed by the simulacrum’s last message, Anastacia wrapped her arms around the unmoving hunk of stone and metal and hoped it did anything to ease the suffering.
Slowly, even with her limited capacity for thinking, she understood what Spirit had been asking; he didn’t care in the slightest where he had been brought to, all the simulacrum wanted was to know where the body it had been attached to was.
‘Saajatar’ must have been the hag’s original name and the simulacrum missed her dearly.
“You’re not alone.” Anastacia comforted them as best she could. “I promise I’ll make you able to speak again… It’s not the same, I know, but that way we can at least listen to you.”
Unlike King and Leggy, Spirit did not let out a constant humming noise at all, other than the lights that remained dimly lit, there was no way of telling if the simulacrum was awake at all, and even then it was impossible to differentiate them from any given inanimate mechanism from a machine fort. Yet it somehow felt like there was a strange mournful aura surrounding the machine. Whether it was Spirit’s thoughts still being projected by the remnants of the hag’s powers lingering in it, or just Anastacia’s imagination, she couldn’t help but to cry as her surroundings faded into a thick black mist that obscured all but herself and Spirit.
In her sorrow, Anastacia had failed to notice someone hastily approaching her door. The priestess of joy had immediately felt the sudden surge of somehow unnatural-feeling misery nearby and rushed to see what was causing it.
With the location of its origin being her dear friend’s room, she didn’t waste time by knocking and instead just punched the door open with her polished steel gauntlet, causing the hinges to creak and almost tear straight off the wall as the door swung open.
As soon as the way was open, a surge of suffocating, smoke-like miasma rushed out with all the power of a tropical storm wind. Barely able to hold her ground, the priestess planted her feet into the wooden floor of the inn as sturdily as she could and shielded her face from the force trying to push her away. Moving forwards even by a step seemed like an impossibility, and every time she dared to lift her foot, she almost lost her balance.
Tightly grasping her mace, Emilia lifted it up and roared out a prayer to her deity. Each of her words conjured embers to be lit on her person; the steel of her armor suddenly appeared red-hot and sent of sparks at denser lumps of the noxious smoke hit it, her naturally red hair turned to resemble heated threads of metal and with each of her heartbeats, she could feel strength flowing into her body.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Yet, even with the divine might of Sylvia on her side, Emilia could only just enter the necromancer’s room. The time between each step felt like an eternity and with every centimeter she advanced, her opposition grew stronger.
Through the smoke, the priestess could barely see the source of the problem: Anastacia, hunched down on the floor, hugging some kind of a simulacrum part. She screamed the necromancer’s name but couldn’t even hear it herself over the sound of the toxic clouds rushing past her. That didn’t stop her form trying anyway, even if Anastacia didn’t seem to react to it.
A step closer to her goal, Emilia could see a figure near Anastacia. Similarly struggling against the wind as she was, the priestess recognized the figure as the barely conscious simulacrum Gilbert had brought in and stored in Anastacia’s room before stealing Yulia and disappearing again. The simulacrum’s pointy feet gave it an advantage by sticking firmly to the small gaps between floorboards, but the large cloak attached to it caught wind like no other and stopped the machine in its tracks.
Just as the priestess was about to get bogged down for good, a large stone arm reached for her from the smoke and King grabbed the priestess by her arm. With the spike attached to his arm, he was able to lock himself in place simply by jabbing it into the floor. While this did stop him from helping Anastacia, it allowed him to just toss Emilia all the way to the other simulacrum.
Already in on the plan, Leggy caught the priestess and pulled her up, all the way up to Anastacia.
Now directly up against the source of the malady, Emilia could feel the same miserable aura the necromancer had succumbed to, but being well in the other end of the emotional spectrum by profession, she had considerable resistances to its effect. The sad, mortifying thoughts and feelings conjured by some ancient means imbued to the simulacrum by the hag, be it intentionally or unintentionally, stood no chance of affecting the priestess.
The repelling force pushing her away from Anastacia and the simulacrum in her embrace however appeared to have no intention of subsiding. Emilia fell on her knees next to the necromancer and perhaps a bit more roughly than she intended to, pushed Anastacia aside to get a clean strike at the simulacrum with her mace. However, just as she raised her weapon, Anastacia lunged back on top of Spirit.
“Nooo! Don’t break him!” The necromancer screamed and wrapped around the simulacrum with tears flooding out of her eyes.
“Then what am I supposed to do?!” Emilia asked while prying her friend off the hunk of stone and metal again. Her understanding of the simulacra was lacking to say the least. Anastacia had at times explained some of the things she knew, but the priestess didn’t know of any other way to shut one down besides simply breaking them to a point they could no longer move.
“NOOOOO!” Anastacia wailed and dragged Spirit along with her as Emilia tried to separate the two.
Momentarily, the priestess found herself considering simply knocking out the necromancer since it would have been a very easy way to remove her from the equation for the moment, but at the same time, she really didn’t want to do it for obvious reasons. Especially when, even though clearly being affected in some way, Anastacia’s concern over the simulacrum’s wellbeing was something Emilia could definitely believe stemmed from the necromancer’s own feelings.
With both of the simple solutions out the window, the priestess was pressed to further rely on the deity she served. While she was already relying on Sylvia’s strength to not get tossed out of the room, she had recently felt a disturbance in her usual relationship with the goddess. The silent moments in her head had become longer and the songs Sylvia sang to her had become less joyous. Emilia had read this as a sing of fatigue and didn’t really suspect anything beyond that, but she had become a bit more hesitant to call upon the deity for aid in mundane matters.
Unfortunately, this was no mundane matter and Emilia grabbed her friend by the face and apologized. “Sorry, Anna, but this is going to sting.” She said while squeezing the necromancer’s temples and began her prayer. “Oh, Lady of Joy, a humble request from the one you have chosen; a companion of mine lays besieged by thoughts darker than night, her mind shadowed by sadness belonging to someone else and her light stolen through means unnatural. Let us melt this misery, turn these thoughts to ashes and scorch the dust that remains!” She beseeched the goddess.
A bright flash filled the room and Anastacia let go of the simulacrum. “Wha… I was just… but, why am I crying?” She asked confusedly.
“HOW DO I SHUT THIS THING DOWN?!” Emilia demanded answers while still firmly gripping on the necromancer’s head.
“Oh? Right.” Muttered Anastacia and simply pulled out the core from Spirit, immediately killing the lights on him as well as any effects he had on its surroundings.
The force pushing away King, Leggy and Emilia waned, finally giving them a bit of respite. The whirring hum of the two simulacra died down as they relaxed, and priestess slumped down exhausted as her appearance returned to the usual spotless one.
While catching her breath, she looked around at the room to see the damages caused by the sudden burst of malignant force, but much to her surprise, there was none. The clothes tossed about by the necromancer herself were still scattered on the floor, a few papers and books were still comfortably on the table and the windows were all intact. Besides the hole on the floor made by King, the marks of Leggy’s feet digging into the floorboards and the slightly loosened door hinges, there were no signs whatsoever about the whole spectacle. The merry adventurers downstairs continued their partying just like before, like none of the smoke or noise had made it downstairs at all. It almost appeared like the three had suffered from some kind of a shared hallucination, but the force and aura of depression had definitely been there.
Similarly, still having her forehead firmly in Emilia’s grip, Anastacia had no idea why she had been so sad. Sure, what had happened to Spirit was a major bummer all around, but at the same time, she had saved a whole lot of lives by stopping the supposed hag of the north and didn’t blame herself about the simulacrum’s situation.
Yet, as soon as Spirit had spoken, she had been overcome by regret and inexplicable sadness. Her mind had conjured up grim comparisons between her own mortality and King’s lack thereof, and the relationship between Spirit and Saajatar – things that usually only barely crossed her mind at all.
All of a sudden, Anastacia could feel the pressure on her temples increase and slowly become painful as Emilia spoke up.
“Anna, you’re so very dear to me, like you wouldn’t even believe.” She started calmly but obviously hid quite a bit of fury behind the words. “But by Lady Sylvia, you are the densest and the most careless brat I have ever witnessed!” She continued, her tone ramping up the entire time until she was yelling at the necromancer. “DO. NOT. MESS. WITH. MAGICAL. BULLSHIT. WITHOUT. ADULT. SUPERVISION!”
“But King-“ Anastacia tried to rebut but had to stop when the priestess’ grip tightened more.
“KING DOES NOT COUNT! He’s just as much of a dumbass.” She remarked and finally released her friend to turn her attention to Spirit. “Now tell me, what is this and why is it filled to brim with grief?”
Rubbing the sides of her head, Anastacia winced and began explaining. “On my quest, there was this ancient spirit or whatever that returned to enact revenge. She did all sorts of annoying magic stuff and threw her pets at us for some reason, but in the end, it turned out that in reality, we were fighting a simulacrum that was latched on to the corpse of this spirit.”
Emilia groaned and buried her face in her hands. “And afterwards you decided to bring this murderous, magic fueled ball of hatred and sadness with you, and then you decided that activating it within the city, inside the inn, was somehow a good idea?”
“Well it doesn’t sound so great if you put it like that and I did have my doubts…” The necromancer admitted. “But I still want to help him.”
“You won’t do anything before I’m done with you, and then I’ll have Rosie scold you, and whenever Gil is coming back with Yulia, I’ll have him give you and earful too! Whatever it takes to sink the lesson into the sawdust your head is apparently full of!” Roared the priestess, now full of divine rage. She was so ticked off by the complete disregard for safety by everyone involved, that when King tried to inch forward and help Anastacia, all he managed to do was include himself to the scolding. “And you!” Emilia yelled and stood up.
She jabbed the huge simulacrum directly into his face with her finger and somehow caused King to flinch. “You spineless yes-man! You’re supposed to be the reasonable one here, but you do nothing but go along with her whims! This utter fool needs someone to keep her grounded, and you seem intent on doing the job, but you need to actually do it when no one else is around!” The priestess growled and kept poking the simulacrum’s face. “You two are on thin ice. Any more of this nonsense and you two aren’t allowed to leave the city without someone keeping an eye on you!”
“You can’t just decide that!” Anastacia protested her freedoms being limited. “I have important stuff to do!”
“Important enough to have your mother and I to worry all the time?!” The furious priestess misspoke. Since their date, Rosie had gotten fully swept away by her aspirations to be a mother figure and would go on and on about it even in bed while Emilia was trying to fall asleep. Realizing her blunder, she turned bright red out of embarrassment.
Anastacia generally had no time to spare for thinking about her mother, and whenever she did for whatever reason, it was in the context of King splitting in half the borderline stranger she apparently shared half of her blood with – a memory she considered a happy one, regardless of how gory it was. What that vile woman had to do with anything and why Anastacia should give a damn about her supposed worries in whatever loathsome afterlife she hopefully had was completely beyond her. “What... the fuck are you even on about now?” She grimaced, now understandably annoyed as well.
Having completely killed all authority she had held during her rant, the priestess was immediately in shambles. “Damnit, no, not your mother mother. What I meant to say is Rosie- ah, fuck it! Just come downstairs in a bit and Rosie will yell at you.” She grumbled, accepted defeat for the time being and stormed out of the room.
Seconds later the priestess returned, marched over to Anastacia and gave her a warm hug. “Welcome back by the way.” She said I her usual friendly tone before storming out again.