Emilia’s spice-scented dreams were usually rather warm for various different reasons, but during the night she had spent in the Ruvenstead’s only inn, her dream had taken a sudden odd turn for the colder. The scenery remained fiery as always, but cold gusts of wind kept on coming until finally one of them snapped her awake.
Being resistant to cold and generally slow to wake up, it took her a while to realize that the room itself was far colder than it had been at night and that she could feel the freezing wind on her feet.
“Anna, I’m going to open my eyes in five seconds, if you’ve left somewhere and the window is open, I’ll tie you to the bed the next time.” She threatened and waited for the answer she wasn’t going to get, as the necromancer was long gone by this time.
Instead of her friend, she heard a response from a voice she had just been introduced to. “Anastacia left almost two hours ago, but can we still blame the open window on her?”
The priestess took a deep breath and sat up to see Iris, halfway through the small window in the corner of the room, clearly stuck by her waist and in need of assistance.
The inquisitor waved awkwardly while being unamusedly stared at.
Without further engagement, Emilia fixed her outfit slightly and began strapping on her armor for the day. Taking her time with each step of her morning ritual, she made sure her uniform was in perfect condition before grabbing her mace and starting her morning prayer.
As she recited the words she knew by more than just her heart, she noticed that while the deity still answered to her as always, Sylvia’s songs seemed somehow muted and distant, like a furious wind was blowing away the words.
“What are you praying for, help with tying your shoelaces?” Iris rudely commented from the window and interrupted the prayer.
“No, I pray for Lady Sylvia’s beauty to clear my sight of illusions, her voice to clear my thoughts, her iron to harden my heart against hate, her fire to heat my passion, her great chains to fasten my resolve and her kindness to give me the patience to pull you in and not kick you in the face until you fall out.” The priestess explained and yawned as she stood back up, again, taking her time to leisurely walk over and inspect the situation.
The reason Iris had gotten stuck seemed to have more to do with her clothes than anything, and pulling her inside wasn’t going to be an issue after unsnagging whatever was stuck.
A thin layer of snow had piled on top of the inquisitor’s lower half and judging by the rather slow rate it was falling, she must have been stuck there for a while already.
“Go ahead then, try to explain this and we’ll see what happens.” Emilia sighed and poked the inquisitor with her mace.
“So I was in our room, doing nothing suspicious at all and then I slipped and fell.” Iris responded without hesitation.
Emilia noted the change in the inquisitor’s appearance in only a few hours; her light brown caramel-like skin had turned pale, her eyes were bloodshot, the tattoos on her face were now engulfed in rather dire-looking dark circles around her eyes and her lips had turned blue. While the last one might have been related to the quickly encroaching hypothermia after dangling from a window for an extended amount of time in clothing that was not designed for winter use, the inquisitor was definitely not having a great time in general.
Grasping the inquisitor by the back of her collar and supporting herself by placing her foot on the windowsill, the priestess forcibly pulled Iris out of her predicament. Without letting go, she closed the window and dragged the comparably light necromancer across the room to toss her on Anastacia’s bed.
Iris quickly rolled up in the bedding to warm herself up, while doing that, she happened to find the note left by Anastacia. “What business do you have with the machine fortress? Those places are deathtraps.” She asked and nodded towards the note.
“What business we have is ours, you stick to yours.” The priestess responded gruffly and snatched the note. “Mainly, you look terrible, is everything alright?”
“Wow, way to attack a girl’s looks like that.” The inquisitor grinned with the worst fake smile Emilia had seen in a long while. “Really though, it’s just that a year ago I was a chicken farmer in charge of twelve chickens, now I’m supposed to be one of the eight exceedingly unqualified people in charge of revitalizing a dying kingdom that suddenly has no clear ruler. A lot of my time goes into desperately and futilely stitching together my friend, who I think is alive through sheer anger and absolutely dedicated to trying to kill someone who might as well be a demigod to us, and hates our guts more than anything else in this world. Then this said demigod pinned me down and plucked my wings off like I was an insect, leaving me stuck in a town being slowly besieged by ancient machines of war while I’m essentially useless to my friends. To be absolutely honest with you, I’m feeling just a teeny-weeny bit stretched thin right now. Maybe a bit stressed too, might be because I’m not equipped for like one tenth of this and everything is slowly slipping out of my hands and there’s nothing I can do about it before everything collapses like the flimsy house of cards it is.” She explained, barely breathing in between sentences while the clear feeling of dread grew on her face. “Maya just keeps getting more and more cut up and not letting her injuries heal, and without my wings, I can’t keep the wounds closed and she’ll keep bleeding…”
Not having expected such an in-depth answer, Emilia was caught off guard. She had yet to make her mind on the inquisitors, but she certainly couldn’t find much joy in the mental breakdown the one before her was having. Despite what Anastacia might have had to say about it later, she knew that she had to help.
Putting down her weapon, the priestess kneeled down to the inquisitor’s level. “Alright, let’s just calm down for now. Breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.” She advised the necromancer. “That’s quite a bit of trouble you’ve been keeping to yourself. You know it’s alright to ask for help, right?”
“Help? I’m an inquisitor! The best Mournvalley has to offer, who is there to help me? The others are all just as busy as me, if not more so. I just need to hold on and keep things from falling apart for a while longer.” Iris said and blankly stared at the floor.
Having lived with Anastacia for months, Emilia had understood that to necromancers, their powers were a large part of their identity. Even her friend, who despised that part of herself, would always get disoriented when that option was taken away from her. Though Anastacia had an arsenal of other abilities to rely on and would quickly recover – this was not the case for Iris, she was a necromancer from start to finish, and by severely limiting her prowess, Anastacia had created the necromancer equivalent of a bird with broken wings, which had obviously been the last straw for the overworked inquisitor.
“Don’t go and disregard us regular people so easily. Everyone has their strengths, weaknesses, abilities and gifts, and just because some of your problems might be too much for non-necromancers, it doesn’t mean all of them are.” The priestess said calmly and smiled. “How about I show you what I mean?”
Emilia stood back up and headed out of the room, across the corridor and directly into the inquisitors’ room.
Still wrapped in Anastacia’s blanket, Iris panickily followed her, pleading the priestess to stop when she effortlessly tackled the flimsy door open and invited herself inside.
The smell of rotting flesh flooded into the corridor and made Emilia gag even before she could see the source of the stench. With watery eyes, she walked over to the only filled bed in the room and stared at the bloodstained sheet covering the injured warmaster.
The rotting limbs Maya had temporarily borrowed were throw on the floor, and without the tight wrappings around them and the cold weather, they had started to decay noticeably, and contributed to the smell in a major way.
“I’m sorry…” Iris sniffled and embarrassedly collected bloody rags and bandages from the floor, desperately trying to make it look like things hadn’t completely fallen apart during the night she had been alone with Maya.
The inquisitorial warmaster was still somehow calmly sleeping despite the unimaginable pain all of her injuries must have been causing. Her breathing was ragged and labored but showed no signs of stopping any time soon.
Emilia debated with herself whether she wanted to look under the cover, though the amount of blood seeping through it almost dissuaded her from it, ultimately her curiosity won over and she briefly peeked at patchwork of a body that was barely held together by the leather armor that would need to be removed with a knife, and a copious amount of stiches, some of which had failed after Iris lost her ability to effectively use her powers.
“Whew… This is going to be a hassle.” She sighed, took out a few vials from under her cloak and handed one filled with niveous pearly liquid to Iris. “Rub a bit of that on your eyes.”
“What? Why? What are you doing?” The inquisitor asked, popped open the vial and sniffed the odorless mixture.
The priestess placed the tip of her mace on Maya’s chest. “Getting some divine assistance – and showing off.” She smiled happily and began reciting a quiet prayer.
Iris let out a dry chuckle of disbelief. “No god is going to help an inquisitor, never has, never will.” She muttered and rubbed the concoction into her eyes for a laugh. “But thanks for the effoAAAAAHHH!”
When the inquisitor opened her eyes again, the entire room was engulfed in flames that reached from floor to ceiling. She screamed in terror from the top of her lungs for a good while before realizing that the fire was nothing beyond pleasantly warm. The flames wrapped around her body but did not burn it in the slightest, if anything, they felt refreshing and scorched the massive weight on her shoulders.
The priestess standing by the bed had changed her flawlessly white uniform to an ashen one that smoldered from the edges as it flapped in the fire. The mirror-like armor had become burned iron with a reddish glow to it, and from under it grew barbed wires that coiled around her body, digging her skin and causing drips of molten metal to fall on the floor.
Noticing that Iris had joined the holy correspondence, Emilia spoke up so that she could hear as well. “My Lady Sylvia, your humble chosen has once more come to plead for your aid. A mortal warmaster lays broken, yet undefeated and strong in spirit. Your servant would plead you to spare but a drop of mercy to this child of Mournvalley!” She roared and squeezed the barbs wrapped around her fist to show her conviction.
Each passing second felt like an eternity to Iris, she had no idea what was going on, but her wheelhouse had been left behind so quickly that there was nothing she could do but wait. Like every other necromancer, she had been taught to look down on gods and their servants, but this came with the assumption that no god ever actually bothered to help mortals and what seemed like a blessing or a boon was simple chance and coincidence – but such beliefs were a bit hard to hold on to in her current situation.
Suddenly the fire itself answered. “My beloved chosen, you would have this creature of hate restored? Their soul has given into fury and much of it has been eaten away by anger, what reasoning has brought you to believe this to be just, when the kind thing would be to end their misery?” It sang in a tone that appeared genuinely curious rather than judgmental despite its words.
“These wounds were received when protecting those who would have been unable to do so themselves! A punishment too cruel for a deed of kindness.” Emilia said with a wide smile on her face.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“A recent development surely. In their shadow they carry the lost lives of many, enough injustice to flood more than a mere mortal’s past – some of it even against those I have touched. Is there even a hint of proof for their sincerity? Can such crimes be overlooked so readily? Answer me this, my child.” The fire sang once more, still sounding more like it was testing the priestess’ conviction rather than giving a ruling on Maya.
Emilia laughed joyously. “Such crimes are never to be overlooked; their weight will remain through time last through any change. Their repayment will last for a lifetime and still be futile, but more importantly, there is hope for better! When callous abandonment of hundreds was an option, these fresh saplings of necromancers have proven themselves capable of kindness at a cost to themselves – is it not my duty to enable such acts?” She argued cheerily with the voice as the flames kept burning brighter and brighter. “Their journey is still on their first steps, but am I not here to guide?”
“So you are! Much of their deeds are not ours to forgive, none ours to forget, some ours to revenge – yet, the potential is there, for both the warmaster and the mock saint. On this faint hope for decency will we place our bets and provide them a costly miracle. The faith of many manifesting as rent flesh molded together, sinew, marrow and skin cobbled together to restore a mortal form tainted by hate.” The serenading voice agreed to the priestess’ request with a somewhat somber tone, either from witnessing the remnants of a necromancer it was to work with, or because it thought the miracle would amount to nothing and there was no good to be found in the inquisitors. “The corruption runs deep through the veins, embedding itself into the bone and warding access to the mind. The body heals, but what has been lost will not regrow, neither mind nor body.”
With the final laments of the goddess, a bright flash filled the room, blinding Iris for a moment. When she opened her eyes once more, the flames had disappeared, and Emilia had returned to her usual pure look.
“What? Who? Whee? Hah?” The inquisitorial saint stumbled to speak in an attempt to question the event that had just unfolded before mostly blinded her eyes.
Emilia could feel her body become weaker as Sylvia’s powers drained away; the miracle she had just performed was likely the most taxing one for her and the deity ever since Anastacia’s resurrection.
However, ever since her complete crash after being separated from Sylvia in Ebonywatch, she had begun to intentionally acclimate to the loss of her link and would at least remain functional without the constant boon her close relation to the goddess provided.
Still breathing heavily and needing to lean on the bed for a bit, the priestess wiped her forehead on her sleeve and smiled proudly. “There we go, I asked my god to tie your shoelaces for you – that’s what they’re good for, right?” She said with words drenched in sarcasm and snide. “But I’ll excuse you two now; you have quite a lot to clean and I am beyond parched – miracles as the first thing in the morning really dries you out.”
The stunned inquisitor couldn’t do anything beyond clumsily stepping out of the way as she stared at the miraculous handiwork of Emilia and Sylvia. She had felt the countless broken bones and cuts get erased in seconds but simply couldn’t believe something like that could even happen.
Though necromancers considered themselves the unrivaled masters of all things flesh and bone, not a single one had ever figured out how to use their powers to mend injuries, and much of Iris’ pride in her skills as a regular medic came from being able to at least use her knowledge for the good of her friends.
While obviously beyond grateful for removing what was easily the topmost thing in her growing pile of worry and distress she did her best to hide, the inquisitorial saint was ashamed that she felt frustrated over someone of inferior skill completely ridicule all her expertise and effort. Somehow the priestess’ words about everyone having their strengths and weaknesses now felt like mockery more than anything.
“Everything okay?” Emilia asked from the doorway after noticing that the necromancer’s reaction was somewhat muted compared to usual ones she received for miracles. “Do you understand what I mean now? Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it, you never know who might be there to listen. We’re all here for each other, are we not?”
All she received in return was a little nod, which had to do for the time; after all, she had another necromancer to find and an ancient fortress to invade.
Just as Emilia was about to close the door, she remembered something and peeked into the room again.
“Oh, I almost forgot something!” She exclaimed before a second, much more fiery voice joined hers. “Fuck with what is ours again and you will beg for Anastacia to end you…” The duet warned the inquisitor as a smoky scent wafted into the room.
And with that, Emilia aimed her slightly woozy steps towards the tavern. All she really needed was a quick drink and a morning snack to get things rolling once more, and then she would be ready to run into trouble with Anastacia – she had long since stopped pretending quests would result in anything but that.
The priestess figured that she must have gotten a bit too used to Rosie’s cooking, as somehow the meager food offered by the inn tasted even more underwhelming for her than it had for Anastacia.
The innkeeper clearly wasn’t happy about the non-necromancer guests he housed either and kept angrily staring at Emilia while she almost involuntarily nibbled on her breakfast. Perhaps more luckily to him than anything else, he managed to keep his mouth shut until the priestess left and only returned to his malicious mutterings while gathering the dishes she left behind – how this hateful man ever ended up as an innkeeper was a mystery no lesser than the nearby machine fortress.
On her way through the slowly waking snowy town, Emilia checked for any additional sign of chaos that might have revealed where her friend was, but much to her delight, nothing new had burned down yet.
She took a bit of a detour while looking around and ended up running into Cobalt, who was still dutifully and untiringly holding his ground while browsing the book Gilbert had allowed him to take. The two exchanged brief greetings and the inquisitor questioned Emilia about Maya’s sudden healing he had felt earlier. He politely thanked the priestess and in exchange, promised her a safe passage through the field of bones he controlled.
As the few first rays of sunlight blindingly bounced off the fresh snow that hid most of the bone fragments, the priestess peered at the piles of simulacra remains and noticed a group of familiar figures among them; King’s bulky stature was easiest to see and recognize even from a fair distance, but the stark contrast between Anastacia’s violet cloak and light hair was just as noticeable.
While she didn’t recognize the three other simulacra, it wasn’t hard to deduce their allegiance with the Firstborn, as King wasn’t actively pummeling them to dust.
As she began crossing the field of bones, Emilia could see that the necromancer, rather unsurprisingly, had her hands on one of the Firstborn and appeared to be doing something to its arm.
Anastacia was so immersed to whatever she was working on that she failed to notice her friend finally catching up to her. “Yeah, you see, what they’ve done here is pretty neat actually. They’ve grouped all these paths to this one… I think, and what that would do is divide the power based only on the thickness of the grooves, and that way there’s almost no risk of things happening in the wrong order – which would probably blow your arm up if I’m not wrong. But that makes the pattern over here even more of a tragedy, and whoever came up with this one didn’t care about efficiency at all. Sure, it’s not a huge deal and you’ll cool off naturally enough for it to just be a minor inconvenience at worst, but I can’t help but to think that they could’ve used the saved power somewhere else… like give you some sleek, rock-hard abs and have them vibrate! That’d be amazing and no doubt beneficial in so, so many ways...” She mumbled to herself and traced patterns on Sister Reticulatas arm with her finger. Once again, the lines and the patterns they created made more sense to her than they had the last time, but the more she knew about their purpose, the clearer it became that the simulacra were created to serve a purpose instead of being complete creatures with a perfectly tailored body for life.
Flesh and bone had their oddities for sure, but each part served some purpose on almost all living beings, but the simulacra appeared to simply be ‘good enough’. Their bodies were a miracle of engineering and probably quite a few more arts in that they functioned in the first place, but that appeared to be as far as they went; the patterns were riddled with parts that ended nowhere or looped pointlessly, all creating some amount of heat that dissipated into the air without doing anything worthwhile.
The one exception to this was King, whose body utilized every bit of energy it could. While he generated even more heat than the other simulacra Anastacia had seen, it happened somewhere deep within instead of some dead ends of design on his armor, and at least appeared to serve a function in limbering up his movements. Going with the assumption that each of the cores powering the simulacra were equal in strength, it was impressive how much more the knight of stone achieved with a single core – how much more he was made to achieve.
“Delighted greeting. Overflowing with gratitude. Ah! The good priestess of Sylvia has finally joined us!” Brother malus exclaimed but only turned a few of his eyes off Anastacia’s hands.
“Good morning, Brother Malus. I hope Anna hasn’t been too grabby with your escorts while you waited for me.” The priestess responded with a tired smile and bowed slightly towards the simulacra she hadn’t seen before.
“Honest reassurance. Expressing gladness. On the contrary, good priestess, on the contrary! From the time we were created into this cursed existence of ours, this young necromancer’s hands are the first ones to touch us with kindness and warmth. Even knowing the souls thrashing within our beings, our late masters treated us as tools at best, and ever since their well-earned departure, we’ve only been met with fear by the mortals and indifference by the others. So please, rest assured that the enjoyment is mutual.” The fleshy lump of facial features and stone laughed.
Emilia looked at the dumb smirk on Anastacia’s face, as she still rubbed the smooth stone and muttered to herself. “Kindness is a curious way to say ‘adolescent intrigue’ but sure, also I’d keep an eye on King if I were you, he’s the jealous type.” She chuckled but only half-jokingly, as King was indeed looming over Anastacia’s shoulder and staring down at the Firstborn with a tad more ominous hum than usual. “But I do wonder if we have the time to stand around and gossip, we are on a rescue mission, are we not?”
The leader of the Firstborn finally turned his undivided attention to Emilia. “Embarrassing realization. Admitting lack of focus. Yes! A most gracious thank you to you fair priestess of Sylvia! We should progress with great haste. Please follow in our footsteps.” He gasped and immediately ordered his escorts to start heading towards the machine fortress watching over the field.
As Sister Reticulata joined the other two of her kind to lead the group and dispatch any hollow simulacra they ran into on the short walk across the snow, Anastacia finally snapped back into the reality and noticed Emilia. Slightly embarrassed about completely missing what had happened because she had been too focused on the simulacra, Anastacia didn’t say anything to the priestess, whose smile confirmed that she could almost read the necromancer’s thoughts.
The distance between Ruvenstead and the machine fortress was easily crossed in only a few moments with a brisk walking pace. The snow had yet to pile up enough to slow down traveling and the field had been maintained by the town’s residents, so it was still nice and smooth after the previous harvest.
About a kilometer away from the fortress, Brother Malus suddenly ordered his followers to stop. He annoyedly stared at the tallest tower of the structure for a while before turning to the adventurers.
“Regrettable acknowledgement. Explaining expected complication. This is as far as the Firstborn are able to escort you, kind adventurers.” He sighed, clearly unhappy with the lack of aid he and his congregation were able to give.
“What do you mean?” Anastacia asked and frowned disappointedly.
“Understandable disheartening. Describing failure. Among the many things Erratic Judgement led their knights of stone against, were beings divine in nature. ‘Powerful and troublesome’ being the definition of many gods in those days, they were a significant threat before our betrayal. Luckily, the divine no longer belong to this world of ours, and their powers are quick to wane when brought here. This weakness of theirs can be exploited through an ingenious method of further distancing an area from the divine plains, allowing the creation of places the gods can not enter without risking everything. The great general, in their infinite wisdom, saw it fit to make the bastion of the knights such a place – and to this day, the ward remains…
“For simulacra, this is of no concern and they may pass freely, but the Firstborn draw strength from a source with divine allegiance. Attempting to move any closer than this would cause the fragments of life in us to fail.”
Emilia was quick to make the connection between the ward and what happened in Ebonywatch, and saw it as a way to properly test her training. Having exhausted a large portion of her powers already, there wasn’t much to lose if the ward would severe the connection between Sylvia and her anyway.
She only took a few steps past the Firstborn and could feel the singing in her head die down as her body lost the few drips of divineness it had at the time. As the air in her lungs briefly escaped and a wave of pain washed over her, she had a moment of complete blackout followed by cold sweat and nausea. Though it was exhausting, the nausea and soreness began fading shortly and the priestess felt it to be manageable at least, and she would be able to function well enough to not drag Anastacia down.
Suddenly out of nowhere, Leggy followed the priestess’ example, and with unhesitating steps, she walked towards the fortress, only to fall over lifelessly soon after.
Anastacia shrieked in terror and rushed to the cloaked simulacrum’s side. With a great amount of effort, she tipped Leggy’s body to its side and plunged her arm inside her armor to see if the meatball inside the simulacrum was okay.
Her hand grasped at nothing but red dust that was left behind from the strange lump of flesh that had bitten her once.
While she did know that Leggy’s life was in no danger, the concern far outweighed reason in her head and she started to panickily look for anything to help the simulacrum with, even considering shoving her own finger into the core slot to revive her newest friend.
Surprisingly, out of everyone present, it was King who yanked one of the cores out of Sister Maxima’s pauldron and kneeled next to Anastacia to hand it to her while helping to turn Leggy over.
“Curious realization. Exclaiming surprisedly. It appears Sister Pyrus has chosen to follow you inside.” Brother Malus chortled delightedly while instructing Sister Maxima to pluck a few more spare cores from her shoulder pads for the adventurers, as they were no doubt going to be useful within the fort.