The simulacrum core slid easily into its place within Leggy’s chest and the ancient machine readily flickered back on only a few seconds later. She patiently waited for the necromancer to remove her hand from under the armor before gracefully hoisting herself back up as if nothing had happened.
“Calming reassurance. Explicating function. You needn’t worry, young child of death, the seed of life living upon our undying husks is but a source of power – only there to replace one produced by crimes against all there is, and to mark us as Firstborn. Sister Pyrus remains who she has always been, though she now possesses a unique perspective on the horrors required to animate our bodies through traditional means, as she has felt existence without.” Brother Malus said with a lamenting tone that made it clear how much the simulacra loathed their old masters.
Always curious about the simulacra, Anastacia wanted to ask more about these ‘horrors’, but felt like it wouldn’t be appropriate at all.
The leader of the Firstborn must have noticed the necromancer’s intrigue, as he continued his speech. “Clarifying explanation. Expanding knowledge. You see, within each of the innocent-looking bits of ancient ceravitrum, writhes a soul of a so called ‘lesser being’ – that is, a human, an elf, an orc… what have you. Much like us, these souls are twisted and tainted, forever stuck in our realm. With each movement, each thought and each sensation, we feel the soul scream and make its millionth attempt to claw itself free – this is the torture the prince of life lifted from us by gifting each firstborn a tiny fragment of himself.
“These souls are lost and unrecoverable, so we do not berate those that still rely on them, as there rarely is a choice, but why Sister Pyrus would so willingly live with a burden she was freed from, is beyond us.”
Anastacia circled around the cloaked simulacrum but couldn’t see anything odd in her behavior, but instead, she noticed that King was no longer interested in keeping his distance from Leggy, nor did he appear too bothered when the necromancer touched her. Whether this was because Leggy had finally won his trust by coming along all the way, or because the lump of meat within her was gone was unclear – though knowing the stubbornness of her simulacrum, Anastacia’s money was on the latter.
“Guess we should really be going, the town won’t hold forever, and we have no idea what’s inside or how long it takes to get to this Judgement fellow.” Anastacia decided. She could have spent the next few days learning everything Brother Malus had to say about the simulacra, but it was not the time or the place for such a lengthy inquiry.
“Reassuring confirmation. Engaging departure. Go with easy minds, fair adventurers, we shall help keep our brothers at bay in your absence. Blessings of the prince upon you!” The speaking simulacrum said as it ordered its followers to retreat from the vicinity of the machine fort.
The adventurers turned their sights on the part of the massive fortress that appeared to be the entrance, and with King’s guidance, headed towards it.
Built on the side of a small mountain range that lined the valley, the fortress was almost jarring to look at against its natural background. Each corner of each pylon, spire, wall and arch was perfect and symmetrical down to fractions of degrees. The dark gray color of the structure was flawless and smooth as well, without so much as a stain or a hint of discoloration, making it look somehow fake, since the harsh sunlight of the thousands of summers or the cold winds of about equally many winters hadn’t done anything at all to its stone surface. Though most machine fortresses were now ruins, the one the party was heading towards had remained immaculate from the day it was built.
Its main part consisted of a single cylindrical spire that loomed over the valley with its width rivaling an entire castle and height surpassing even the trees of the Garden of the Ancients. Running along its sides were vertical grooves that reached form its base all the way to the top.
The gargantuan spire had not a single window on it, but neither did any other part of the fortress, and the only details on the smooth surfaces were the various arched alcoves with no apparent function. Most more recent palaces would have used such places for statues and windows, but again, the fortress lacked both.
Along the mountainside, about a hundred meters from the main tower in either direction, were two smaller spires that connected to the main one through walls that contained several stone obelisks as parts of them. Spread evenly along both walls, the obelisks grew taller the further away from the main tower they were, almost doubling in height – the shortest ones being barely taller than the wall they were a part of and the final ones almost rivaling the side towers.
Curiously, nowhere on this massive structure were there signs of birds landing on it – If there was a rule to be found in nature, it was that birds would take any chance they got to crap on anything taller than a goblin, but something about the fort had kept them away. What made the absence of animals even more curious was that despite its height and size, there was nothing ominous about the building, nothing about it suggested it was dangerous to get close to, or even hinted at it having defenses. Even the usual traps that came with most machine fortresses were either long broken or simply didn’t exist.
While they walked towards the main tower, Anastacia could tell how uncomfortable the priestess was after losing her connection to Sylvia, so she decided to distract her with a question that had bothered herself before the new simulacra had caught her attention.
“Am I an asshole?” The necromancer asked.
“Yes.” Emilia responded immediately, without a fraction of a second of hesitation or consideration. She then pulled out the note Anastacia had left for her and pretended to make another mark for cursing. “But are you talking about something specific?”
“Seriously? You’re going to take money off me for self-reflection?” Anastacia groaned and tried to get a glance at how many marks she had already gotten. “Whatever… I mean about the whole inquisitor deal. That Cobalt idiot said that the whole situation between them and me is my fault and that I should apologize to them for killing one of theirs.”
“Well, the short answer would still be yes, you’re an asshole about it, but that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily at fault or wrong.” The priestess pondered out loud. “No one else, not me, not Gil, and most certainly not the inquisitors have gone through what you have in Mournvalley or have any right to say how you should feel about them.
“It’s not even really the matter of whether they were directly involved in your imprisonment or not, because it’s not like any of them went out of their way to help you before the coup, right? From what I understand, there was no way they didn’t know about you, and you were eventually only let out to create chaos, not because they had a sudden turn of conscience.
“To me, that’s just being complacent until it suited them to ‘save’ you – I know because I’ve done exactly that. I lived with the old church of Sylvia for years and did absolutely nothing about their atrocities, because it was the easy thing to do. Just because I ended it years later doesn’t magically absolve me of that, nor does it make them innocent of what went on under their noses. So I can’t fault you for still extending your hate to them, you absolutely have the right to be however furious about it as you want to, and I think it speaks much about you that most of them are still alive.” She explained her views on the matter and was successfully tricked out of thinking about the uncomfortable silence in her head.
“Oh.” The necromancer nodded and smiled happily about someone else justifying her actions.
“But…” The priestess continued with a thoughtful frown on her face as she blankly stared forwards. “That doesn’t mean you couldn’t apologize. They did still lose someone close to them and you were involved, so I can certainly understand why it’d mean a lot to them and why they might see as something you should do. Especially now that they don’t appear to have things entirely under control, it’s natural to look for someone to blame.
“Personally, I think you went a bit too far with Iris. She seems like an alright person as far as necromancers go and is going through a lot. I don’t like you terrorizing people either, because that’s not who you are. Despite most of your life so far being a nightmarescape, you still have compassion in you, so I would much rather you had it for those that have just found themselves in theirs, no matter how it compares to yours.”
A lot less satisfied with the rest of the answer, Anastacia pouted and scratched her head. “So should I apologize or not?” She asked for a clear-cut solution to avoid having to think too much.
Instead, Emilia gave her an extremely unsatisfying shrug. “Maybe, maybe not, it’s not for me to figure out. All I’ll say about is that if I were you, I would stop burning bridges I might have to run back across later. No matter what, these inquisitors can be worked with, and I would sure like to have that as an option without you trying to kill each other any time you’re without adult supervision.” She reasoned but ultimately refused to give a clear answer because she wanted Anastacia to make her own decisions.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The necromancer groaned in dissatisfaction over the lack of easy answers, but whether or not apologizing would have been the right thing, she was in no way ready to forgive anyone from Mournvalley. The best she could have done at the time was an obviously fake and almost hostile apology that would probably have made things worse more than anything.
About fifty meters from what appeared to be a massive stone door on the side of the main spire, King suddenly halted and gestured for the rest of the group to do so as well. He kicked the snow by his feet and gazed at the frozen surface of the ground for a while before turning to Anastacia.
“Please don’t say you forgot your keys somewhere.” She said half-jokingly. She knew how much King hated the idea of going back to his commander and took the delay as a final act of hesitation.
Calmly walking up to her simulacrum, she firmly grasped King’s lukewarm hand and leaned against him to encourage the knight to proceed.
King nodded before the lights on his armor flared up for a second as the hum he made changed its pitch to a lower one.
For a while nothing appeared to happen, but just as Anastacia was about to ask if there was a problem, the ground beneath them began shaking violently.
The simulacrum’s hum was suddenly matched with an identical one from the tower’s direction – though much, much more powerful. The adventurers could feel the air itself waver as the deafening sound blared across the field, no doubt waking up anyone still sleeping in Ruvenstead and terrifying the rest.
When it finally died down, a flicker of light blue light appeared on the door before them, only to quickly spread in familiar-looking patterns across the entire structure.
Soon, the quaking of the ground was given a reason as well, as several obelisks shot up from the frozen soil and flung lumps of icy earth on the visitors.
Like a wave, more and more obelisks rose up from the ground and spread their network for hundreds of meters before stopping – all the way to the point where the firstborn had left. Roughly ten meters tall and ten meters apart from each other, they covered the entire area in a perfect grid.
As the patterns of light climbed on the newly appeared obelisks, the main tower began emitting a second sound; though not as deafening, it was worrying in its own way, as it sounded like it was slowly charging up for something.
Anastacia glanced up to King, who appeared calm about what was happening. She chose to believe that he knew what he was doing, and that it was all perfectly normal.
Emilia on the other hand had grasped her mace the second anything had happened and was keeping an eye on the situation with a bit less faith.
Leggy’s reaction was about as lacking as the other simulacrum’s; she stood perfectly still, almost appearing to be knowingly waiting for something.
Every other sound appeared to die out as the charging noise reached its peak and after a brief lapse, culminated in a muted thump that sounded like a muffled explosion followed by a blinding flash from the obelisks nearest to the tower, and then from the row behind it, and then the next one, slowly washing the entire field with bright light that drowned out everything else.
When the light dimmed, Anastacia glanced at the simulacrum that had been by her and had to take a step back. Next to King now stood two slightly translucent forms; one tall and proud like him, clad in armor of stone and wielding a spear and a large shield, and the other but a mere elven child with a terrified look on her face. The taller of the two didn’t appear too pleased with the situation either, despite the noble posture they had, their pitch-black eyes lamentingly stared at the crying child before the tall figure pulled the visor of their helmet down.
“Wha…” The necromancer was about to ask as she glanced at the priestess but was silenced by the even stranger sight around her.
Emilia stood still and stunned much like her, but wrapped around her were the transparent arms of a strange tall woman, whose skin was ashen grey and clothing appeared to be iron grafted into her skin, including a mask that covered the top half of her face and from under which flowed out long flocks of red hot wires. The woman appeared entirely infatuated with the priestess and didn’t even notice the collapsed, scorched person weeping and shaking on the ground before Emilia.
The cloaked simulacrum didn’t appear too surprised by the two people standing beside her. The one to her left shared the height and black eyes of the warrior besides King, but instead of an armor, was clad in torn remains of a simple linen outfit and carried metal shackles around their wrists, ankles and neck. To the right of the simulacrum, stood a dashing, young human man in well-made frilly clothes and a rather uppity and unlikeable aura about him.
Despite clearly having something going on with themselves, the entire party was for some reason staring at the necromancer. At first Anastacia thought there was something wrong with her appearance and nervously brushed a bit of dirt form her cloak before realizing to glance over her right shoulder.
To her side was what appeared to be a pale copy of her; with short frizzly hair and a metal collar that covered her mouth, the likeness was a bit hard to find at first, but it was still unmistakably there. The copy’s eyes were cold and joyless to a harrowing degree, but she also had a determined look to her. Her robes were pearly white with golden trimmings and topped with a violet silk sash thrown over her shoulder. On her back, the copy carried a full set of five spears with red pieces of cloth tied to them.
Warily, Anastacia glanced over her other shoulder to see a second copy of herself, cockily standing with her hands on her hips and a confident smirk on her face. This copy’s skin had seen quite a lot of sunlight and had gained a slightly tanned tone that was easily visible thanks to the complete lack of a shirt of any kind. What clothes the copy had, consisted of the horned helmet Anastacia was wearing, two stone shoulder guards seemingly stolen from a simulacrum, and a metal plated leather loincloth. The copy had also covered herself from head to the shoeless toe with simulacrum-like patterns of either ink or soot.
Before anyone had the chance to say anything, a second blinding flash spread from the obelisks and washed away the transient apparitions the first one had brought.
“What was that?” Anastacia finally got the time to ask as she worriedly looked around for any new strangeness that could have been throwing itself at them.
Emilia ran her hand across the part of the armor the vision hanging on to her had touched. “Some kind of a security thing maybe? I have no idea, but if that’s Erratic Judgement’s idea of a greeting, I’d try to get used to the weirdness.” She said and turned to King. “Is that normal?”
King nodded and started to head for the door as if nothing had happened.
Anastacia was quick to scurry after him, this time being the one who stuck just a bit too close to the other. Emilia and Leggy shared a subtle nod to check up on each other before following the pair.
As they finally approached the giant, seamless rectangle in the side of the tower that was the only thing that appeared to be anything like an entrance, the structure let out a slight hissing sound, as if an old seal had been broken and the air pressure inside and outside quickly equalized.
With a faint grating sound, the massive slab of stone slid down and revealed a steeply slanted tunnel that led directly into the mountainside, with no apparent way to enter the tower itself.
The only source of light inside was a thin trail of shining patterns that led into the dark and quickly disappeared.
“And then they stepped into the darkness, disappearing as the door closed behind them, never to be seen again.” Anastacia tried to make the corridor even slightly less ominous by jokingly narrating the start of their quest.
Emilia peered into the dark but still couldn’t see a thing. “What happened to the unparalleled engineering and all that? Did they just not come up with lamps or something?” She rolled her eyes and opened her lantern.
“I’m sure it’s fine, bet the lighting is like touch activated or something else fancy.” The necromancer nervously laughed and took a step to the corridor.
Much to her delight, the trail of patterns lit up brightly for the few meters ahead of her. Now full of confidence and hubris, she took a second step, immediately slipped on the awkwardly steep slope and began tumbling down – conveniently lighting the corridor as she went.
The other three watched Anastacia scream, roll and slide for what felt like a good half a minute before stopping on a plateau.
“Good job! You were right about the lighting!” Emilia yelled after making sure her friend still moved at the bottom of the slope.
“Duck you!” Echoed the answer from inside.
King dashed down to help while Emilia and Leggy carefully descended.
Suddenly the door behind them slid back up and sealed the adventurers inside, shutting off all the noise from outside and amplifying the ones from deeper within.
A faint mechanical thump could be heard from inside the fortress, echoing along the no doubt endless corridors every five seconds with meticulous exactness. Caused by something unquestionably massive, it almost felt like the fortress itself had a heartbeat.
“Are you okay?” The priestess smirked once she got to the bottom of the slope, where Anastacia was still laying on the floor and holding her injured shoulder.
“Oh yeah, I’m doing great… Just enjoying the ancient architecture.” The necromancer groaned and refused to get up. She had mostly been sliding and wasn’t actually all that hurt, but the wound on her shoulder had almost opened up again and the pain had flared up. “This cool floor in particular…”
Emilia took a better look at the room they were in while the necromancer recuperated from her tumble and found that the circular hall had no paths attached to it, other than the one they had entered from. The walls were smooth and lit with patterns similar to the ones on King’s armor, but no part of them appeared even slightly to be designed to be interacted with. Instead, there was small pedestal in the middle of the floor.
She walked up to it and started to examine the patterns on its surface, but unlike Anastacia, couldn’t make the head nor tail from them at all. Almost immediately resorting to confusedly tapping any spot that seemed like it could be important, she failed to make anything happen.
“We would like to enter, please.” She asked out loud and mashed her metal gauntlet on the pedestal again, and to her surprise the floor below them hummed in response.
With a slight nudge, the floor began moving down at a steady pace and the quickly unreachable entrance disappeared into the darkness as the lights above them dimmed once more.
The trip down soon became impossible to track. The patterns on the wall provided some reference to how quickly they were descending, but as minutes passed and started to become hard to keep track of as well, the speed didn’t matter either.
The rhythmic grinding sound the floor made while sliding along the walls was the only thing the adventurers had to focus on and made a decent addition to the pulsing thumps from the deep, almost feeling intentional at times.
“What happens if we just keep going down forever? Will we just drop through the world into an abyss?” Anastacia asked after what must have been an hour, while the priestess was making sure her wound hadn’t started to bleed again.
Emilia rubbed a bit of ointment on the forming scab to keep it from being infected before replacing the bandages. “I hear it’s all fire, molten metal and stone down there.” She answered based on something a miner had once told her.
“Coming from you, that sounds extremely biased.” The necromancer snickered.