After her long, extremely excruciating, partly humiliating but ultimately rather eye-opening talk with Emilia, Anastacia had barely gotten a wink sleep. Bent and twisted atop the laps of both simulacra, against all reason, she had somehow found a comfortable place to rest, but the confusing nature of regular adult relationships kept her mind racing as she stared at the ceiling.
With the scent of burning wood, candles and incense completely covering the rotten stench of Crescent, the warmth emanating from the fireplace, King’s gentle hum and the weight of Leggy’s metal cape on her, it should have been a perfect situation for one of the most restful nights of her life, but whatever god of sleep there was, had clearly forgotten about the necromancer for the night.
Emilia had offered to share the horrendously soft and oversized bed, but after years of sleeping on a layer of straw on top of stone, Anastacia had barely gotten used to the humble comfort of her bed at the inn, and in all honesty, preferred a firmer platform to lay on.
Observing the sleeping priestess flail about in sleep confirmed that the necromancer had made the right choice, as even in a bed of such size, it would have been difficult to dodge some of the swings Emilia threw while tossing and turning.
At one point during the night, Emilia suddenly stood up from the bed, obviously still completely out of it, only to walk over to the table to put her gauntlets on and returned to her bed. Anastacia tried to strike up a conversation with her, but the sleepwalking priestess didn’t answer, so she just figured that whatever her friend was fighting in her dreams, needed a proper trashing with armored gloves.
She could also feel and hear the acolytes go about their business in the rest of the building well into the night. They messed around with the oil for a good while, visited few of the rooms along the corridor and held some kind of a communion by the door to the high priestess’ room, until finally, a couple of hours past midnight by Anastacia’s estimations, they retired for the day, huddled together in the corner of the room they had fortified with traps and clutter.
Even without the thoughts brought up by the talk she had suffered through, Anastacia probably wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep. She didn’t even really feel tired anymore, and there was a constant feeling of unease gnawing at the back of her mind. It had probably started the moment she had inhaled the wretched air polluting the city, but she had either not noticed it or thought it as a simple side effect of the smell of corpses that caused her necromantic powers give off a constant, almost unnoticeable tingle – like a creepy equivalent of whatever it was that made a person salivate after catching a whiff of some tasty food. However, after spending a few hours away from the stench, the feeling hadn’t disappeared.
She hadn’t really paid any attention to it while she had the cultists to observe and other things to think through, but the long hours of the night had caused her mind to drift from her usual troubles and thoughts to weird shapes in the grain of the ceiling boards and other matters that didn’t distract her enough anymore, and the uneasiness surfaced as a major problem.
It was hard to put of finger on it and point out the exact reason for the feeling. While it was obviously of necromantic origin, it wasn’t something Anastacia was familiar with. The presence of another necromancer would have been a good candidate, but that caused a clear, gut-wrenching sign that couldn’t be misinterpreted – even if the other necromancer was particularly weak. On top of that, another necromancer would have been easy to pinpoint whereas the feeling gave off no particular direction for the cause.
Another possibility would have been a stain left by past necromancies used, but there were several problems with that theory. Typically it was barely noticeable, even when touching the material affected; so corruption so severe that it was detectable simply by being in the area and spanned the entire city, would have required someone at a level of Coquelicot or Anastacia herself, at a peak condition, possibly together even. In addition, she would have probably felt it happen all the way in Valor, as would have every scout employed by Mournvalley, so it really wasn’t a realistic possibility worth pondering.
“I’m going to have to figure this one out, aren’t I?” She sighed partly to herself and partly to King, who had noticed her concern. “There’s no way I can sleep with this on my mind.”
She quietly tumbled up from her bed and took a look at the priestess, who was soundly asleep and snoring ever so slightly. It seemed pointless to wake her up for what was probably going to be just a walk around the neighborhood that wouldn’t amount to much, and it seemed more important that at least one of them got some proper rest before heading into the forest part of the trip.
Making as little noise as she could, she wrapped herself in an appropriate amount of clothing, prepared her scented face cover and gestured for the simulacra to follow her out.
The sisterhood must have once again placed some new seals on the door, as Anastacia could hear a few break and fall onto the floor as she opened it. Remarkably, the noise of a bit of soft wax and paper falling on the floor was enough to briefly wake up Annie in the cultists’ bedroom. The small dragon-like person held her breath, presumably to listen for further suspicious noises.
Not wishing to cause any unneeded concern to the rehabilitated bandit, the necromancer took a few less than sneaky steps to make it clear it was just her, though King’s uncaringly loud footsteps made that a bit pointless. Leggy, on the other hand, managed to somehow make no sound whatsoever, even some of the creaky floorboard failed to let out a peep under her pointy feet.
“Suppose I could have left a note.” Anastacia realized a bit too late and opened the door outside, immediately regretting it as the cold flooded the room and crept inside her clothes through her sleeves. Regardless, she braved onwards and made it to the unlit streets of Crescent.
Unsurprisingly, the necromancer and her simulacra appeared to be the only people out so late and even the lights shining through windows were sparse. In Valor, it would have still been a prime drinking hour, but Anastacia figured that the people of Crescent probably had things to do and couldn’t just lazily drink away the days until their purse got a bit too light for their liking.
Between the complete silence and the occasional gusts of icy wind, the mood in the city was almost haunted, but not necessarily in a bad way. If anything, it felt like she was out solving a harmless mystery – between trying not to get obliterated by unkillable ancient beings or facing the realities brought on by her talk with Emilia, it was a rather nice distraction.
“Case of the necromantic tang… Case of Crescent’s boney aftertaste – A nec-romantic nightly stroll? Eh?” She winked to King and tried to come up with a name for the waste of time they were now committed to.
Walking past the temple, Anastacia stared at the paved road under her feet and could tell that there was a small hill’s worth of blood-contaminated soil below it. Consisting of countless small stones, rather than larger slabs, the surface was more or less perfect for allowing water, or blood, to seep through into the soil and far too annoying, costly and cumbersome to peel off and replace after adding a clay lining that could have helped with the smell.
“See? This is the problem with cities, including Valor as far as I can tell, they’re not designed with massacres in mind. It would be great if those didn’t happen, but for as long as they do, they should at least build things in a way that’s easy to clean.” She made a rather macabre comment without even thinking about it. “They were lucky it didn’t poison their wells too, though I suppose they could grow quite a bit of ichor moss now – I should bring that up with the sisterhood, they seemed to have a small garden.”
Ichor moss was a plan species native to Mournvalley, but it was used and valued highly by alchemists and chemists elsewhere as well. Its surface was coated with a blood-like substance, a drop of which could keep a bucket full of real blood fresh for over a week. So, if a concoction needed blood, some ichor moss extract was a must or all one would get was a lump of coagulated blood in their elixir. Naturally, necromancers misused it horrendously, and those more focused on blood used it to avoid having to change their materials daily. What made it troublesome was that it would only grow in soil that had been ‘enriched’ with blood, which was not really a rare thing in Mournvalley, but elsewhere in the world it was luckily less common. Regardless, it was not a cheap ingredient and would probably help funding the sisterhood’s undoubtedly astronomically high wax and paper expenses.
As they aimlessly wandered the nearby streets, the group came to a crossroads with a bit better view of the night sky. There was not even a hint of a cloud obstructing the magnificently starry sight above them.
“The moon is about a quarter from full and fifteen degrees from its apex…” The necromancer estimated and tried to apply some of the teachings Gilbert had painstakingly repeated for her. “That means it’s… night?” She failed and could almost hear her mentor groaning somewhere in the distance.
While she couldn’t tell what time it was, it did remind her that they had been achieving nothing by just walking around for almost half an hour and should probably consider a change of techniques for their search.
“Anyone see any ladders? We could get up on the rooftops and check if we can see anything suspicious from there.” Anastacia suggested. Though she honestly did think it would help, she mostly wanted to see if the air there was any fresher – and maybe, just the tiniest bit, she just wanted to climb on some rooftops when no one happened to be there to say no.
Suddenly Leggy dashed at a nearby building and effortlessly scaled up the wall in a blink of an eye. Before the necromancer even had a chance to say anything, the agile simulacrum was posing at the edge of the roof, with her cloak barely swaying in the wind at all.
Anastacia applauded the stunt. “That’s great and I’m all about those legs of yours, but it doesn’t help us-“ She managed to say before King’s hum became louder all of a sudden and Leggy moved into a better position for catching something. “NO!” She screamed, realizing what was about to happen.
The ancient knight of stone grasped the necromancer by the stomach, lifted her up, spun around once to get some momentum to the throw and just tossed the flailing and screaming girl on top of the two-story building, where Leggy caught her and made sure she didn’t roll over the ridge and fall back to the ground on the other side.
“Dick move, both of you!” Anastacia yelled once she had gotten her bearings on the tiles. “But I’m happy that you two can work together! So that’s nice.”
King looked around for anything he could use to get up as well but failed to find anything particularly helpful. So, as was often the case with him, he chose to substitute planning with raw strength and sank his stone fingers into the comparably soft wooden wall of the building to get a grip on it and slowly began climbing up, probably causing a bit of structural damage to the wall along the way.
Reconvened on the rooftop, the trio stopped to take a good look at the countless stars above them and just bask in their light.
The gusts of wind were noticeably stronger without the buildings sheltering the necromancer from them. Luckily, both the simulacra had realized this, and King offered her his warmed-up arm to latch on to while Leggy lifted her cloak to shield Anastacia from some of the worse gusts. However, these gusts also blew away the morbid stench of death and decay, allowing the necromancer to remove her face covering for the time being.
As they walked across the slippery tiles and maintenance boardwalks, hopping from roof to roof, they scanned the streets below and the horizon around them.
Moving was considerably slower than on the streets, especially because they didn’t particularly want to alert the people living under the roofs they were trampling on top of, but they slowly worked their way further from the temple spires they used as a landmark. A few times, the gap between two buildings was just a bit too wide to safely jump over and Anastacia had to be thrown over it, she still didn’t enjoy it but had accepted her fate and hoped it wouldn’t become a frequent tactic to be used.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
On the roof of a particularly old building that still used wooden shingles and tar as a roofing, the boards gave out under King’s immense weight and he fell most of the way through it, only barely managing to claw his way back up. Since there were no screams heard from inside and nothing else indicated that they had been discovered, Anastacia figured that they should just clear out from the area and never mention it to anyone.
After over an hour of basically just having fun running around the city, Anastacia had pretty much forgotten about the original goal of the outing and even considered returning back to the barracks. Just as she had started looking for a way down, the strange feeling at the back of her mind fluctuated in strength and caused her to freeze.
She frantically looked around but couldn’t see anything of particular interest, that is, until Leggy pointed out something in the distance; a flickering light inside some kind of a coop or a shack built on top of a house that had once been used to house pigeons but seemed to be far too beaten up for the job.
“Is that a campfire?” Anastacia asked out loud and gestured the simulacra to follow her towards it.
The route to the suspicious light was mostly made up of roofs that were actually designed to be traversed and were used by craftsmen to have room for their kilns, furnaces and other such things in the densely packed city, which considerably helped the trio to stealthily approach the shack.
Hiding behind a set of chimneys, only a few meters away, Anastacia had a perfect spot to see inside and overhear the conversation going on.
By the fire, she could make out two men with books on their hands, unfortunately they were in front of the fire and facing away from her, so their silhouettes was all she could see. As they flipped through the pages, they appeared to be observing an orange stray cat that had joined them by the fire.
“Here it is.” One of the men said and showed his book to the other. Something about his voice felt familiar to the necromancer, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“Well it says she should yawn in three… two… one…” The other one counted down as they intensely stared at the cat, who was comfortably asleep in the warmth of the fire and did nothing. “That one’s not accurate anymore.” There was a familiar cadence to his speech as well, but it sounded like he was wearing something in front of his mouth which made it even harder to recognize.
The first man closed the book disappointedly and dropped it into the fire before picking up a new one. “Oh, this one is interesting!” He noted.
The other one leaned over and took a look at the page. “Does the cat finally do something?”
“No, but it says Anastacia will surprise us from over yonder.” The more familiar-sounding one laughed.
The other man closed the book he was reading and glanced in the direction of the chimneys. “That certainly is surprising, I didn’t even know she was in the city – slightly embarrassing, now that I think about it.”
“Who are you people?!” Anastacia yelled and jumped out from her hiding place. She stormed to the shack to have a better look at the people who apparently knew her by name.
In the light of the fire, she immediately recognized the crow-like birdfolk in his smart, mostly black clothes. She had met this strange person before by wandering around in a forest and just happening to run into his cabin. Back then he had introduced himself as Noir and had proceeded to spout confusing nonsense for the rest of their meeting.
“YOU?!” The necromancer gasped and pointed at Noir.
“Probably!” The crow happily agreed. “Fates are fickle and once more should out paths cross.”
The man Noir had talked with, was rather small and frail in appearance. He was wearing clothes identical to Noir’s, but with an addition of a black leather mask that covered his head. Attached to the front of the mask were a pair of goggles with pitch black lenses and a beautifully made and polished silver beak that gave his voice a tinny tone.
Anastacia glared at the masked weirdo, trying to figure out who he reminded her of. “Do I know you?” She asked.
“Now, in our line of work, knowing someone is a very difficult thing to define. Have you met me? Perhaps, I’m not entirely sure. I have for sure met a ‘you’ several times, but none of those may have been you ‘you’. In fact, over the years, I’ve probably met ‘you’ more often than most people – you’re the sort to get involved after all.” The man explained in a completely incoherent manner. “But in case this ‘you’ hasn’t met me yet; you may call me… Vinca.” He introduced himself, hesitating suspiciously before telling his name.
“Damnit, they’re both like this…” The necromancer groaned and sat down next to the cat, who didn’t seem to mind her.
The simulacra followed her but remained outside of the coop, almost like they would rather avoid dealing with the two, admittedly annoying scribes.
“It says here that the cat is successfully petted.” Noir pointed to his colleague out as he saw Anastacia absentmindedly reach for the one beside her. “This one must still be accurate.”
Carefully brushing the stray cat’s hair with her fingers, Anastacia took a better look at the pair of almost annoyingly cheery nutjobs before her. Both of them had two satchel bags full of black leather books without titles, some of which had been already chucked into the fire for whatever reason.
As far as she knew, Noir was some kind of a knowledge trader that somehow knew things he should have no way of knowing, but also wanted to know completely inconsequential things in return for answering questions. Vinca must have been in the same business, and at least spoke in the same quizzical way that annoyed Anastacia to no end. Both of them appeared to be just regular people with the usual vulnerability to necromancy, though Vinca gave off a strange feeling when prodded with it, almost like he knew it was happening.
“But can we afford to be wasting a meeting with the goblin queen herself like so? Our work of verifying the collection has been there for decades and isn’t going anywhere, whereas she might run off if we bore her. Sparing a moment or two seems like it would be of good value here.” Vinca pointed out and gestured towards Anastacia. “Who knows what mundanely pointless secrets lurk in the void of her head? Surely we must at least attempt to acquire some of them?”
Noir nodded agreeingly. “This is very true indeed, though our paths cross more often than one would think, no two Anastacias share the same knowledge – and what she tells us is always delightfully menial!” He pondered and took out one of the books and a black quill. “Since you and I appear to be readily acquainted, mender of metal and stone, you must know of the bargain we offer? Answers for answers, though both of your choosing.” He addressed the necromancer.
“This again? I told you before, I don’t have any answers anyone would be interested in, especially ones you don’t have already.” Anastacia doubted the value of what she knew. “You’d be better of asking King or Leggy.”
“We do not ask.” Noir laughed delightedly. “Besides, the artificial children following you are awfully mute for our tastes. Yet, this is a song and dance we repeat frequently with you, is there a way to make you understand that, for our purposes, a favorite color is worth a hundred secrets of eternal youth, a good recipe for a soup will trade for the location of an ancient artifact. Vinca here once acquired the circumference of a muse’s horn for the low, low price of naming the world’s best blacksmith.”
“You really shouldn’t be telling muses anything... Not that that’s a problem anymore.” Anastacia commented and tried to think of anything Noir and Vinca would be interested in. “Did you know that Coquelicot is apparently sick or something? I recently met one of the new inquisitors and he said she isn’t willing to meet anyone.”
Anastacia could feel Vinca’s fists tense when hearing Coquelicot’s name, but he clearly worked very hard to make his distress not be apparent.
“Unfortunately, we know of her… condition already. Attempt to come up with something more personal, something only you could have come across, that is where the true value lies.” Noir said and shook his head disappointedly.
“Well, recently I found out that if I drink wine and mead, I apparently get an urge to violate statues and punch children – oh, and it gives me the power to locate and infiltrate ancient ruins just like that.” The necromancer shrugged and continued scratching the cat.
Noir’s face lit up. “Fascinating! Punching children of all things!” He muttered and scribbled what he had learned to the book.
“I was cursed at the time too, but honestly I think that only really contributed to the other part. Speaking of which, does that count as two bits of tidbit?” Anastacia asked. She may have not fully understood the deal or the currency they were trading in, but she certainly didn’t want to end up in the red in the whole transaction.
The merchants glanced at each other to make sure they were in agreement and shared a quick shrug.
Vinca picked up a book from one of his bags, opened it on a seemingly random page and began going through the text. “In all honesty, we had construed as much when it comes to you and statues. It is a trait shared by each and every one of ‘you’ we have spoken with, generally brought forth by the spriggan in your life. There are very few cases of such meticulous consistency in our collection, it’s on par with some laws of physics.”
Anastacia sighed in realization. “Yeah, cursed me would have jumped Xammy in seconds… but we avoided that crisis, eh?”
The masked merchant kept flipping pages of his book. “Well, for now anyway, the odds are extremely stacked against you. However, returning to the matter at hand; yes, that counts as two answers for our purposes. Even if we had our suspicions, verified knowledge is worth its weight in gold, while assumptions lack both value and mass.” He explained while putting away the book that apparently contained statistics on Anastacia. “You may have two answers of your choosing.”
The first question was readily loaded into Anastacia’s mind. “What is the cause of this light tingle of necromancy residing in this city?”
“Ah… That would likely be yours truly.” Vinca admitted with embarrassment in his muffled voice. “Once, well over a lifetime ago, I was a necromancer. Not a particularly powerful or important one anyway, but my place wasn’t among the rest of Mournvalley, and it was a gift I gladly gave away for this current purpose of ours.”
“Wait, someone knocked the necromancy out of you? That seems like bullshit.” Anastacia asked surprisedly, she had never heard of such a thing happening.
The supposedly ‘cured’ necromancer adjusted his metallic beak, likely seeking the proper words to answer the question without giving away too much information. “The one we work for considers necromancers a threat, and while she doesn’t hate them, she would rather not have one around and with access to the collection.”
“Who might this ‘she’ be then? A god?” The adventurer inquired further. Knowing that an option to just not be a necromancer was out there definitely made her think.
“The matter of trace necromancy has been settled; further answers would complete our trade.” Noir suddenly interrupted the two. “Is this what the night-touched child wishes?”
Anastacia recoiled slightly, she already had enough gods messing with everything she did and on the off chance the question would have invoked yet another one into her life, she felt it was better left unasked. She suspected that Noir knew this and intentionally made her rethink the second answer she asked for.
Looking for something to ask about, the necromancer’s gaze happened upon the simulacra, who were standing outside, as far apart as the roof allowed them to. She could have asked something about them, but then again, she could just squeeze the answer out of strawberry or the speaking Firstborn she met, or even this ‘Erratic Judgement’ person they were on their way to rescue.
The next thing she noticed was the moon behind them. She could have used the chance to shed some light on Holly’s situation, perhaps even get a solution that protected the owl girl from the night for good. This was certainly tempting, as there was no way Holly deserved any of her troubles, but just as Anastacia was about to ask her question, the silhouette of the temple against the night sky caught her eye.
“What would have happened if I had died here?” She asked out loud, almost accidentally.
The crow seemed surprised by the question, almost certainly because he had expected something juvenile and moronic like last time, when Anastacia had asked how she would look in the future. His surprise slowly turned into almost a proud smile as he took out a book from his bag.
“The child has grown since the last we met.” He chortled while looking for the right page. “The records from the worlds where a young life was cut short are spotty to say the least. I assume your concern is mostly for the people nearest and dearest to you? If so, let us start our recount from the knight of stone by your side:
“The lost knight would have wandered the forest, withering down day by day, never finding a reason to leave. It is not told here how long this would last, but the suggestion is that his broken-down remains would have been swallowed along with the rest of the world when it came time for the primordial night to cover all of creation.
“The woman of faith accompanying you here, would have not dared to return to the city of adventurers and would have become a recluse. Slowly losing her faith, but not being able to quench the flame within. She would have burned hollow and become nothing more than a puppet strung by fiery strings. Interestingly, the primordial night seemed to have spared her, and left her wander the dark.
“Having lost his apprentices, your mentor would have become old and frail in spirit, surrounded by friends but hopelessly alone. Thinking he had failed everyone, he would one day simply disappear into the north, never to be seen again.
“The horde at your feet would have continued living, splinter by splinter, chipping away at its soul. Without guidance, mortal or divine, this process would only accelerate, and the final splinter would have faded well before it needed to.
“For the city of adventurers, there is not much to say, for all we found were vacant ruins. There was no hint of a cause or reason, but the guild was no more.
“And finally, there was Mournvalley. The revolution would have ultimately failed to unify the people and left behind a scattered nation, a crippled, bleeding beast of a kingdom that slowly faded into obscurity. Atrocities caused by its unguided necromancers perhaps outshining the lack of adventurers in terms of damage done.
“Forces beyond this world would have not found each other and ultimately, they would have been left unable to aid the world when it needed it.” Noir gave a longwinded answer with a bit more far reaching scope than Anastacia was prepared for.
The necromancer took her hand off the cat and slowly digested the answer given to her. “Are you… are you saying that the world is better off with me in it?” She asked and started to tear up. “Even if I’m a necromancer?”
The crow flipped through a few more pages before taking out a second book and searched for something referenced in the first one. “By the looks of it, nor is it by a meager margin either. Whether you like it or not, Anastacia of Valor is a beneficial force for the most part, in the majority of possibilities.”
An amazingly radiant smile appeared on the necromancer’s pale face, one without even the hint of the mischievousness she often displayed. Without saying a word, she stood up and pranced away along the rooftops of crescent with her simulacra following in her steps.
The scribes watched for a while as the light blue shine of King’s armor disappeared between the buildings in the temple’s direction before sharing a hearty chuckle, picking up a pair of new books and continuing to observe the sleeping cat.