After the initial problem of Anastacia and Maya actively trying to kill each other was at least temporarily solved, both the adventurers and Mournvalleyans rented themselves rooms from the only inn in Ruvenstead.
Due to the number of rooms being limited to three in the relatively small establishment, Gilbert had to share a room with the weakest of the necromancers, Laureth, who also brought with him the child him and Maya had taken from their parents due to them presenting considerable necromantic abilities. The remaining two rooms were given to Anastacia and Emilia, the first of whom had yet to wake up after being knocked out, and the three inquisitors, who were more than used to sharing a room and preferred to stick together anyway.
Thought they had a bit of explaining to do about the collapsed warehouse, the town welcomed them on the promise that the adventurers would work to solve the simulacra problem while the inquisitors kept protecting the town. The curfew set by Maya was lifted, but the people were told to not pass the defensive field of bones for their own safety, while Cobalt took over its operation.
The room given to Emilia and Anastacia was about one and a half times the size of the rooms in Rosie’s inn, contained much of the same in the way of furniture, but had two beds along the opposite walls instead of just the one. The room was lit by a couple of oil lamps that were barely enough to do the job, so Emilia had placed her own lantern on the table.
On the wall facing north, near the corner of the room, there was an adorably small window that gave a surprisingly good view over the rooftops of the town.
In the only open area of the room, between the beds, was one of the two chairs that came with the room, and on it, was the unconscious necromancer.
”That should hold her for a bit, or at least keep her from leaving the room…” Gilbert said and fastened the ropes holding Anastacia on a chair for one last time. “What happened to her shoulder?” He asked and pointed at the slightly bloody bandages expertly wound on it.
Emilia picked up Anastacia’s violet cloak and wiggled her finger through the hole in it. “I assume the injury was from the patchwork inquisitor, but the wrapping was actually done by that Laureth guy. When I got here, he was trying to fend off King with a shovel while Anna was throwing up form seeing so much blood. He was supposed to be pretty good with that sort of thing and had plenty of supplies on him, so I beat him with the shovel until he promised to take care of Anna – apparently the wound isn’t anything to worry about, it didn’t hit the artery or anything like that, just need to give her something for the pain every now and then.”
“Well, she should wake up soon enough, we need to make sure she doesn’t attack Iris and the others on sight again.” The old adventurer said and sat down on one of the beds to rest his knees. He looked around for a pipe in his kit but came to a conclusion that he had forgotten to pack one in his haste.
“You’re on a first name basis with them now?” The priestess sneered and tossed Gilbert a small pouch she carried on her, containing an almost inconveniently small pipe and a bit of tobacco. She herself didn’t smoke but had at one point reasoned that it would come in handy or earn her a favor sooner or later. For the same reason, the seemingly endless storage space under her cloak also contained a pouch with coffee and sugar in it – just enough for a couple of cups.
Gilbert more than gladly accepted the gift and full of almost child-like excitement started packing the pipe that looked like it was made for a doll in his large hands. “Yeah, I reckon they’re okay folks at the end of the day, just brought up different – just a different different from the different adventurers were. No sense in making enemies out of them anyways.” He explained.
“Fair enough. Even the pissed off one didn’t attack me earlier, and they are protecting this town for no real benefit to themselves – they could have just scurried back to Mournvalley and left these people on their own.” Emilia agreed. “I think it might be a bit more difficult to convince Anna about it though.”
“She does have her reasons though, got to remember that.” Gilbert nodded.
The cry of a baby echoed from the room over and reminded the adventurers about that side of the problem as well. Anastacia had mentioned it being brought up in the diplomatic meeting she had been involved, so her party was about as knowledgeable on the inquisitors’ kidnapping ways as she was.
Emilia was clearly bothered by the sound. “Should we be doing something about that?” She asked.
Gilbert puffed the first thought-clearing cloud of smoke from his mouth and sighed. “I don’t think so. You’ve got to remember that we’re no heroes. Not every injustice is ours to fix, especially when we hardly know what we’d be doing.” He said and shook his head. “Back where I’m from, there are a few stories from nearby towns of children that were born necromancers. The standard way to deal with it was to leave the child deep into the woods and never mention it again, after all, people fear what they don’t understand, and no one understands necromancers these days. Letting the inquisition take them to Mournvalley may well be the best shot that kid has at a life. We just don’t know enough to actually help.”
“I suppose you have a point.” The priestess said and sighed heavily. She slumped down on the bed she had claimed for herself and took off her cloak. “I think the kid’s not a human though. His ears were plenty pointy from what I saw. I’ve never seen a necromancer that wasn’t human, does that change things?”
Suddenly the door creaked open and Iris peeked her head into the room. She made sure that Anastacia was still out of it and pitched in to the conversation she had obviously been eavesdropping on so far. “It doesn’t. The killing of any non-human necromancers was one of the first things Coquelicot put a stop to, so now we’ve got a whole bunch of kids of every size, shape and color. It’s a massive hassle, but we’ll manage.”
She walked into the room and extremely warily approached the unconscious necromancer tied to a chair, likely planning to touch her just so she could boast about it later, but both King and Leggy stepped forth to stop her from getting anywhere near. Iris lifted both her arms and wings up before backing away and turning her attention to the adventurer she wasn’t acquainted with yet.
The inquisitor scanned Emilia from head to toe with her gaze with a puzzled frown. Completely ignoring any personal space the priestess had, she grabbed Emilia’s hand, gently squeezed her palm a few times and slowly moved to her wrist and elbow – all the while her wings flapped excitedly.
The priestess gave a confused look to her friend across the room but only received a shrug in return.
The prodding continued for a few more moments, until suddenly the inquisitor lifted one of her feet on the bed and pushed her face right in front of Emilia’s. “Can I bite you?” She asked eagerly.
“N… no?” Emilia responded with an extremely uncomfortable look on her face.
Iris sighed. “Well, worth the try, but you have to sleep sooner or later.” She smiled and leaned back but didn’t take her foot off the bed. “Anyway, I am Iris of the new inquisition, also known as the inquisitorial saint. If you have any question about health or injuries, feel free to bother me any time, as I qualify as a doctor!” She introduced herself and grandly spread her wings as wide as she could.
“Rrrrright…” The priestess said and slowly moved further away. “Emilia, high priestess of Sylvia and an adventurer.”
“Ahh! The priestess I’ve heard not more than a few sentences about! The one who fancies themselves as a healer.” The inquisitor said with an obviously derisive tone. “Since we’re friends now, we could sneak into some place quiet and I could teach you about biology – you know, so you’d be a bit less useless without celestial meddling.” She suggested with an extremely hard to read smirk on her face.
Emilia frowned and tried very hard to figure out if the inquisitor was coming on to her or wanted to get her ass handed to her. She glanced at Gilbert for help, but the old adventurer was far too busy smoking with his piddly pipe to pay attention to anything else.
“Do not mistake us for friends quite yet.” She said and gave a roundabout answer that covered all possibilities. “If you have treatments to teach, I will gladly listen to you, but if you have a problem with My Lady, I will equally gladly throw you at Anna.”
Iris clapped her hands together excitedly. “I saw your work on Maya, it requires some honing but that’s just a matter of practice. However, I could expand your knowledge of things within! Antidotes for poisons, poisons for antidotes, internal wounds and bleeding, deep cuts, things lodged in deep cuts, poisons lodged in deep cuts… Well, you get the gist of it, we’ll see what we have time for.” She listed some of her favorite subjects.
The whole thing started to appear a bit suspicious to the priestess. The eagerness Iris was showing just to teach some adventurer she barely knew a few things seemed somehow off, like it most certainly wouldn’t be the end of it.
“And you’ll teach me just our of the goodness of your heart?” Emilia asked.
Iris’ wily grin widened. “Theonethatlet’smebitetheminreturnsayswhat.” She blurted out.
Unimpressed by the childish ruse, the priestess shoved Iris out of the way and started to neatly fold her cloak away for the day. “No.” She sighed bluntly. “You should leave before Anna wakes up; we’ll talk more about what you have to offer in the morning.”
The inquisitor chuckled dryly with a sudden bleak look in her eyes. “You don’t actually know how powerful she is, do you? If that nugget of indiscipline truly wanted any of us dead, it doesn’t matter where we are in this building – or this town for that matter.” She explained and folded her wings to fit on the bed next to Gilbert. “Since we have to stay here anyway, I’ve come here to take the brunt of it. We need Cobalt to keep the town safe and Maya is in no shape to get tossed about – so it’s up to yours truly to be the first thing she sees and focuses on. The brief report from the second we received before he left for Ou didn’t paint her as super-duper murdery, but we don’t really know exactly how riled up Maya got her – I sure do hope she doesn’t wake up on the wrong side of the… chair.”
Though she hadn’t really decided whether she liked or hated Iris, Emilia didn’t think she deserved to be in the spot she was in and felt bad for the inquisitor. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, she’s quick to anger and equally quick to calm down.” She comforted her.
“Em.” Gilbert mumbled and pointed at King’s arm with his pipe.
The spot where Maya had successfully broken some of his armor wasn’t apparent on a quick glance, but to someone who knew the simulacrum well, it was noticeable.
“Oh... Oh!” The priestess exclaimed when he realized Gilbert’s point; no one hurts Anastacia’s simulacrum. “She might actually kill someone.”
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As if on cue, the inquisitor’s wings collapsed when she felt the first oppressing wave of power hit her, and like Teal after angering Anastacia, she felt almost like her abilities had briefly been torn out of her body by the force of someone much, much stronger.
Anastacia slowly lifted her head with an unsurprised or almost disappointed look on her face. She quickly tested the ropes keeping her still and came to a conclusion that she wasn’t going to get free without help.
Her cold gaze instantly locked on to the inquisitor, who was starting to have doubts about being the one who had to face Anastacia.
“You know what’s the worst thing about all of this? It’s that every time I meet someone from your stupid little group, I start to understand how Coquelicot probably feels. The feeling that there’s someone in this world that you just should kill to be over and done with. Just like her life would have been easier if she had gotten rid of me at the right time, I’m starting to think mine will eventually be so much easier if I just wipe you out – you know, before what happened to Alizarin happens again.” Anastacia explained and glanced at King before continuing. “But what separates her from me is that I don’t have a coup in the works, and I have no particular reason to keep you idiots alive either. However, the thing is, I am better than you – as a person, I mean. A weirdo crow told me that, so it has to be true.”
The disoriented inquisitor could barely hear what was being said, and instead could only focus on the futility of her own efforts to push back at all. Despite the reasonably calm manner of speech, it was very easy to tell exactly how furious Anastacia actually was, as for Iris and the other necromancers, it felt like they were watching an entire avalanche heading directly at them and there was nothing they could do about it.
The inquisitorial saint tried her best to remain brave on the surface, but she had shrunk into a trembling puddle of a necromancer without even realizing it. Her skeletal wings limply dragged behind as she retreated into the corner of the room, weeping and sniffling.
Clearly happy for the effect she was having, Anastacia smugly smirked and continued. “Because of this, I will give you one last chance, the absolutely final one.
“If you have a problem with me, you come to me and only me, all at once for all I care – but if you ever so much as think about touching King, my goblins, my friends or even my vague acquaintances that I kind of like, I will hunt down every last inquisitor, just like I did before.” She growled and stomped on the floor. “Iris, was it? From what little Gilbert told me, you have some sway over the rest of your circus act of a group, so it will be up to you to warn them. Fail that, and we end up at odds again, you will watch as I tear apart and burn everything you care about – and only then I’ll end you as well.”
Even with her threat over and done with, Anastacia still felt like she deserved at least some payback for the piece King was now missing. She didn’t even care about getting stabbed all that much and only really remembered it because of the pain, as her mind was far too preoccupied by the damage done to her simulacrum. With that she stoked her anger just a bit more and showed it by taking control of Iris’ wings.
As her power coursed through the patterns in the beautifully preserved and carved bones, their purpose was revealed to Anastacia; though they weren’t useful for the reasons creatures usually had wings for, Iris used them to compartmentalize her control over undead creatures. Thanks to the adventurer’s rather generous understanding of control patterns, she could also make a reasonable assumption that the inquisitorial saint was especially talented in controlling several more complicated targets at once, and just like some necromancers chose to use their arms to direct their power, she divided her thralls between each part of the wings and controlled a vast number through them – in other words, she was a traditionalist when it came to necromancy, the type that was mentioned in the stories parents used to scare their children.
Reanimation had always been the part of necromancy Anastacia hated the most, so she saw having control over the wings as an opportunity to put at least a temporary end to some of that as well.
Iris watched in horror as the wings she had spent countless hours working on and were a no lesser part of her than her arms or legs turned to dust that piled up in her feet. She collapsed on her knees and frantically tied to grasp at the remains as she helplessly failed to gain any sort of foothold on what little was still left.
“Anna! Enough!” Emilia yelled when she couldn’t watch the inquisitor grovel anymore.
“Not nearly, but I think she got the point. Just get her out of here if you care that much.” Anastacia scoffed. Whatever points Teal’s help had scored for the inquisition in her eyes, were now more than wiped out and weren’t going to save them from her; but while she did think they deserved everything she was doing, she herself didn’t enjoy it as much as she had though she would.
Emilia got up from her bed and began escorting the inquisitor out while quietly demanding Gilbert to say something as well.
“As soon as you untie me, I’ll kick you right in the dick for the bottle thing.” Anastacia said bluntly when the priestess closed the door behind her.
“…And you’re staying tied up then.” The old adventurer nodded. “Do you feel like you went just a bit overboard with that, just the tiniest bit even? Or did you get to blow out enough steam at least?”
The necromancer leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Enough to not try to kill them on sight for a while, but I make no promises.” She sighed and began to calm down. “I just can’t handle it when King gets hurt… If you or I get a bit stabbed, it hurts for sure, but it’ll heal. If a piece falls off him, it’s gone forever. I’m just worried that eventually there won’t be any left, if I let people chip off chunks like this. I mean, I can try to repair him a bit, but they don’t exactly make spare parts for him anymore.”
“That’s understandable, I suppose, but I’m going to need you to rein in the hate for a while – those necromancers know something about the group Sylvia asked us to find.” Gilbert revealed with a slightly lowered tone. “I haven’t gotten much information out of them, but they did mention something called ‘The Violet Sect’”
“Why am I not surprised that all duckery eventually leads to Mournvalley…” Anastacia groaned. “I know a bit about them, there’s a book I’ve read a bit of but kind of just forgot when I foolishly thought I’d never have to deal with necromancers again.
“They were basically a group just like the inquisition, but much larger. Before they just one day disappeared entirely, like hundreds of years ago, they were almost in war with the red inquisition of the day.”
Choosing to omit that Anastacia no longer had the book, Gilbert moved on. “While you guys are doing whatever it is that you’re here to do, I’m going to fish for more info from that Cobalt fellow. We’ll have a chat once you get back and decide where to go from there.”
“You’re not coming along to the fort now that you’re here anyway?” The tied-up necromancer frowned.
The old adventurer leaned back on his seat and considered his options. “Nay… As much as I’d like to, I get the feeling that I’m not supposed to know what’s going on, and sometimes really not knowing is the better option. You can fill me in later if it seems appropriate.” He slowly exhaled a bit of smoke before continuing. “And besides, it’s a good chance for Em and you to see how you fare without me.”
Figuring that Anastacia had calmed down enough, Gilbert got up and headed for the door, hoping to escape before the simulacra in the room would inevitably release her. He also wanted to check up on Iris to just in case, and to apologize for her wings – maybe replacing them was even something he could help with while the rest of his party was busy. With his privates still unkicked, he wished the necromancer a good night and wandered off.
Anastacia waited for a while and made sure Gilbert was far enough away before doing anything. She trusted her friends but thought that they just didn’t know necromancers well enough to make good decisions about them. No matter how innocent they appeared, all of them were no better than murderers and assassins.
“Leggy, could you keep an eye on the inquisitors for me through the night? Come to me immediately if you see them doing something suspicious. Don’t try to interact with them, and if you suspect you were seen at all, just flee – I don’t want you taking risks for this.” She instructed the cloaked simulacrum and waited for King to snap the rope holding her still. “The insane one is sleeping in this building and the one called Iris is with Emilia and Gil, so focus on the third one for now, he’s a bit further away, outside. Also keep an eye out for any of the firstborn and make sure they don’t try to enter the town; we’ll look for them in the morning.”
Leggy nodded in response and walked over to the small window by the corner of the room – barely large enough for Anastacia to fit through. Without making a single sound, she slid it open and twisted herself out with little difficulty.
Freed from her binds, Anastacia took a look out of the window hoping to figure out where she was and if she had missed something after falling for Gilbert’s trickery. The town of Ruvenstead was still dark and its streets empty, though it was late, somehow the quiet seemed unnatural. Obviously, the abundant presence of necromancers ticked her off, but that wasn’t it, at least not entirely.
From the room’s window she could just barely see the silhouette of the machine fortress they were heading for. In its direction, a few blue lights flickered briefly before straying too close to the town and getting shredded by the inquisition’s defenses. The speaking firstborn had told them that there should have been a ‘few’ of their hollow brethren around, but Anastacia had seen the ones strewn about by Maya, and it really seemed to be closer to ‘numerous’, which meant that either Brother Malus had lied, or the situation had gotten worse.
“Can you hear the call they’re being lured in by? The one by Erratic Judgement.” The necromancer asked and closed the window.
King nodded.
“Since when? From the time we got here?” Anastacia guessed. She walked over to the simulacrum and pushed him into a bed so she could get a better look of his injury.
This time King shook his head.
“All the way back from Valor then? And you just ignored it for like weeks? Exactly how against this are you?” She guessed again and started cleaning off the remining bits of broken stone so that it didn’t get in King’s joints and cause even more damage. “And why? Do you not like your folks or something?”
The simulacrum remained still and didn’t answer, he simply kept staring at the necromancer as she worked.
Absentmindedly scraping at the grooves of the stone armor once more brought calmness to Anastacia’s heart. She climbed on top of him while slowly moving up his arm and forgot that they were even having a conversation, and by the time she moved on to his neck and head, the necromancer had forgotten that there were inquisitors so near to them, or what inquisitors even really were, only briefly snapping back to reality once in a while thanks to the pain in her shoulder.
By this point, she knew each and every one of the scrapes on King’s body and how they happened, and though he seemed rather indestructible, the damage was starting to weigh on Anastacia’s shoulders. Unless a remedy was discovered, there was no telling how many years the simulacrum had before it would just become unsafe to take him along.
Suddenly an interesting thought crossed Anastacia’s mind. “We’re heading to the place you were built in, right? Do you think they might have unused parts for you? Are these even exchangeable?” She excitedly inquired.
King took a while to answer, almost like he was considering if he even wanted to have his armor to be replaced, or if he would be giving false hope to the necromancer by saying yes when the parts weren’t replaceable. Regardless of the reason for his hesitation, the knight of stone nodded in the end.
“Oh! This is great news! I bet you’re super handsome in some fresh kit.” Anastacia giggled and gave King a quick kiss on the cheek. “Maybe it’ll even fix your grumpy attitude, new stuff always makes me happy after all.”
Continuing with her favorite pastime, the necromancer slowly got rid of the equipment she was still carrying and the clothes she had worn to ward off the cold weather to have more flexibility and reach. After all, cleaning a simulacrum was intensive work at times and the room they were in was plenty warm after spending a couple of days outside.
Though in reality, there really wasn’t all that much to do since King hadn’t really done any real fighting after the last cleaning, however, some red wax had somehow found its way into his armor – do doubt thanks to certain acolytes. King’s tendency to heat up while moving had made it melt several times over, but the way it cleaned off was very satisfying and made Anastacia get a bit too into it.
After a good while of rigorous cleaning, Emilia returned to the room they shared. Expecting the necromancer to still be a bit ticked off, she slowly opened the door and stuck her head in. While she did notice the pile of clothes on the floor and made some rather rude assumptions, she quickly remembered who she was dealing with and walked in anyway.
“Good to see you two have properly made up, but can you please stop? Your innocence is blinding, and it hurts my soul to look at… this. Also, there are such things as locks – typically on doors… for privacy.” She commented and sat down on her bed to yawn. “We need to make a plan for tomorrow before I fall asleep.”
Anastacia rolled off King and kicked her clothes into a marginally neater pile by the bed. “We go in, find new armor for King and do the other stuff on the side, like save what’s-their-face.” She presented her now drastically changed objectives for the quest.
Emilia explained that they didn’t really need to worry about daylight since they were heading underground, so leaving as soon as they woke up wasn’t a priority. Instead, she would see if Iris was feeling better and still up for some teaching, while Anastacia and King should try and not kill any inquisitors while looking for the firstborn.
Since King was more or less the only being that had been inside the fortress since ever, he would have to work as the guide, whether Leggy would continue to travel with them didn’t really affect the plans since she didn’t require equipment, food or water.
With their plan loosely cobbled together, they retired for the day.