After a thorough clean, polish and greasing, Anastacia was trying to choose the pieces of armor she wanted to clothe King with but perusing the massive library of pieces was no light task. Only a select few of the heavier pieces got in the way of others, so mixing and matching the different sets was perfectly doable, adding to the already insurmountable ordeal.
Not to mention that there were countless weapons to choose from; at least a dozen different swords, equal number of shields, even more blunt weapons, lances, spears, axes, glaives, halberds and everything in between, all neatly arranged to line the back wall of the room. A set of bows and a good selection of arrows was also available, but the necromancer still didn’t trust them enough to ask King to wield one – let alone one that could be used to sink ships if needed.
Even figuring out where to start seemed impossible, as the first pieces she picked didn’t really match what she wanted and clashed horribly even before the entire set was attached to the simulacrum.
King seemed relatively indifferent to the whole process but was quick to discard his old stone shell in favor of anything that hadn’t gotten worn down over thousands of years of rain, snow, sun and slaughter. He tossed the last pieces of his old armor aside with little care about where they ended up and began acclimating to his temporary lighter appearance.
“Why don’t we do it like this: pick a weapon you want, and we’ll see what suits you.” Anastacia suggested after spending far more time indecisively pacing around the shelves than she should have.
King nodded and stood up from the workbench the necromancer had dismantled him on and for the first time ever, appeared to be even slightly careful of his movements. The usual firm and exact maneuvers were replaced by disoriented wobbling and vacillating, and despite him still being made out of a quarter of a ton of almost indestructible metal alloy, he looked vulnerable.
Anastacia watched as the simulacrum stumbled around, trying to find his bearings after suddenly losing almost half of his weight. She was intrigued by the countless finely tuned parts working perfectly together to simulate the musculature of a person, each movement employing dozens of them and causing them to smoothly glide along their intended paths.
So far, she had only focused on the surface of the ancient machines, and never really considered the inner workings they required. The complicated mechanism and other processes under the stone armor were a whole new mess she had no experience in, and Anastacia realized that in the end, despite knowing the basic idea behind their function, she knew very little of what it took to make a simulacrum.
The blatant copies of control patterns hidden under the armor puzzled the necromancer as well. The creation of the entire control pattern system was generally credited to the same person everything else necromancy related was: Alabaster the White, so Erratic Judgement having access to it was definitely a mystery worth looking into, and Anastacia figured that the easiest way to get some answers would be to ask unit twelve, assuming she hadn’t just ditched the adventurers and was actually coming back.
As Anastacia kept a keen eye on him, King slowly gained confidence in his movement again and headed to the weapon racks. He glared at the set of massive swords that were impossible to wield for almost anyone except his kind, and reached out for one, but just as his hand was about to grasp the handle, he pulled it back and moved on.
While not quite as indecisive as Anastacia, King took his time sizing up the equipment before choosing two items: a large rectangular shield with a curious design that implied it had some hidden functions, and a long spear-like polearm that had a broader blade at the end, that reached partway down the shaft on one side, presumably so that it could be used for sweeping attacks as well.
As soon as his fingers tightened around the handles of his new equipment, they drew power from the hands they belonged in and sprang to life with a mechanical wail – clearly for the first time in more than a couple of years.
Anastacia clapped in awe of the sight, even she could immediately tell how familiar the knight was with the weapon, as he spun it around and lost all uncertainty in his movements for a while.
Satisfied with his choice, King contently returned to the table and waited for the necromancer to do her part.
With her limited knowledge on weapons and armor, Anastacia got to work. At least she couldn’t see King running and jumping around more than before with such a cumbersome shield, so she thought it sensible to go with slightly more armor than what he had on him before. Though the decision may have been affected by her own wants and desires, as well as her hopes to make King more durable in general – so that what happened with Maya would never happen again, but she pretended like she had come up with a logical conclusion and started to skip any parts that seemed too light to her.
For his body, she chose a chest piece that appeared more like Emilia’s plate armor than the old one that had a barer look to it. Made from a single slab of stone, it was definitely as sturdy as they came without being in the way too much. It also came with a neck guard that could be attached and detached with the strange tool she had been given.
She didn’t see all that much difference between the different armors for arms and feet, so she simply chose something that seemed similar to what he had before, but with an addition of some plates of armor that hanged from his waist on the sides and back.
For shoulders, she chose the largest pieces she could find, since they at least looked extremely important. The ones she chose were basically just thick curved slabs of stone with a tall metal ridge running in the middle.
The helmet was by far the most difficult piece to pick. There were several options with random assortments of horns from different species, including one that matched her own goblin made crown, and while she could appreciate them, she wouldn’t help but to feel like she would end up stabbing herself with any pointy appendage they had sooner or later. There were ones that mimicked faces a little bit too accurately as well, and were just downright creepy, as well as ones that had absolutely no detail to them at all. The one she ended up going with was somewhere in between. Though mostly smooth, it had a slightly pointed spot where a nose should have been, a bit of brow on top of the eyeholes and a small slit for a mouth – one she could already see herself shoving things in, just because it would be fun.
One by one, as that was all she could carry, Anastacia gathered the pieces next to King and began attaching them onto his metal frame with the strange tool she had been given. Starting from the smaller pieces on his hands and finally hoisting the massive slab of chest armor on with help form Emilia and Leggy.
As the final light of the armor flickered on, Anastacia marveled at her handiwork and the pristine condition of her simulacrum. Though there was a charm to the worn ruggedness of the old armor, it didn’t come close to beating the crisp and sharp look the new pieces gave him.
“That set is trash.” Unit twelve suddenly commented from the doorway and caught the necromancer rubbing her cheek against the smooth stone of the chest armor.
“So is your attitude, and we’re not complaining.” Anastacia replied without pulling away from King.
“Most of it isn’t designed for spears, so at best you’re looking at ninety to ninety-three percent combat effectiveness – and at that point you might as well leave the battle. It’s placing him and his allies into pointless danger.” The custodian continued and placed the items she was bringing on the table next to the old armor Emilia had inspected.
She then took a better look at king and disregarding the daggers the necromancer stared at her, started fiddling with some of the pieces on his arm. Once she was sure about the sub-par job Anastacia had done, she put her hand out and demanded the tool from Anastacia.
The necromancer shook her head. “Nah, I’m going to keep this one, in case I want to take off some of the bigger pieces once we get back home.”
Unit twelve chuckled derisively. “The knight is already at home. His mission is completed, so he’ll join the ranks here, and once we clear out the minor scuffle at the lower levels, he can report his findings to The Great One. The rest of you are free to buzz off now, for all I care.”
“Wh… what?” Anastacia uttered in shock. She turned to King, hoping to see him shake his head, but instead, the knight simply stared ahead, avoiding her already teary gaze.
“It’s not for him to decide.” Unit twelve shrugged. “All knights answer to The Great One, his connection may have degraded over the years, but duty does not end so simply. He was sent out to see the world and only return when the knights of Erratic Judgement had something to fight for – or against. Earlier he seemed awfully intent that the time had come too.” She explained, clearly finding much joy in the necromancer’s anguish. “Of course, you can take this up with The Great One, but I don’t see you being able to convince anyone about much of anything. So how about you save us all some time and scurry back to whatever hovel you people call home.”
Suddenly the meanspirited smirk on the custodian’s face froze, as Anastacia wiped her face on her sleeve and started to tug and pull on her equipment to prepare herself mentally and physically. Full of determination, she checked her weapons and cracked her knuckles.
“Looks like we’ve got a bit of a change of plans, guys. We get rid of whatever it was that got in here, and then we wrangle King from this asshat who thinks I’ll hand him over just like that.” She stated defiantly.
Based on the look on her face, unit twelve thought she had made a miscalculation somewhere. She had expected the necromancer to crestfallenly shamble back where she came from, but that was not at all what was happening. Anastacia deciding to defy Erratic Judgement was one thing, but when she saw the priestess start to adjust her armor and the other simulacrum step out of the shadows to join them, the custodian was beyond baffled.
“You two are going along with this idiot? You’re going to go and demand something from one of the greatest minds ever to be created because these two are in love or whatever fucked up perversion is going on? And this is after magically solving a problem we’ve had trouble with for months.” The custodian asked in clear disbelief.
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“It’s what friends are for.” Emilia laughed. “We’ve done dumber things for less. At least there’s a chance we can talk this out, generally that’s not what we get.”
Unit twelve stared at King like he was supposed to somehow talk sense to the adventurers, but instead, he pushed the custodian out of the way and gently grabbed the necromancer’s hand.
His reluctance to come back must have been because of the possibility of not being allowed to leave, but he had followed Anastacia anyway, and there really seemed to be no end to the faith he had in the girl, as he was willing to join her once more – actively against his orders now.
The custodian scoffed. “Is there something in the surface air that turns people into morons? The sun maybe?” She mockingly asked but then fell quiet for a while, seemingly trying to decide something. “It’s not every day your kind sticks their neck out for us artificial children though – it’s not every day anyone does that…
Some incoherent grumbles and more than a few annoyed glances later, she spoke up again while staring through a familiar-looking glass pearl between her fingers. “Make no mistake, I don’t for a second think anything will come of your idiotic attempt at whatever this is – The Great One holds what’s his with a grip of iron, but those that do not run from a situation like this deserve a modicum of respect from us of the Wrath core, as it puts you well above the rest of our worthless ilk, as far as we’re concerned. So, before you run along towards your inevitable failure, I will spend a bit of my extremely limited time answering any stupid questions you might have left in you.” She continued, for the first time addressing the adventurers like they were anything besides annoying children that weren’t supposed to be where they were in the first place. It still wasn’t what most people would consider respectful, but a clear improvement nonetheless.
Emilia had plenty of questions regarding actually useful things, like what to expect deeper within the fortress, what was the initial threat they came to handle, would Erratic Judgement know that they weren’t planning on giving up King so easily and would he act on it, but before she had the chance to ask any of these no doubt crucial questions for their success, Anastacia lifted up her hand.
“Why are there necromancer control patterns grafted into King’s metal bits?” She asked about the topmost thing on the pile of mental notes she kept and took a step towards the custodian, who immediately recoiled like she was being approached by a messy child.
“Oh those? As if you transient twats could ever come up with something so elegant yet powerful! It was us that analyzed the situation above the surface and saw the colliding trajectories between the necromancers and Aureun. In an effort to absolutely fuck over our creators, we studied necromancy and came to a conclusion, that the will given to the knights of Erratic Judgement through the methods perfected well before the sun rose for the first time, functioned just the same as the will necromancers imbue their thralls with. So to ensure a perfect massacre, we summoned the two necromancers who looked like they had the pointiest sticks of the bunch and maybe a third brain cell between them, and convinced The Great One to hand over the methods.” Unit twelve reminisced, gaining a delighted glint in her eye from just the idea of destroying the aureun.
While Anastacia chewed the culturally groundbreaking information she had gained, Emilia got the chance to voice out a question of concern. “What is the rest of this place like? Should we be wary of something?”
The custodian seemed to have already forgotten that she promised to help, as she smirked and opened her mouth, but remained quiet as the realization hit her. “Yes – The rest of the Wrath core knows of your arrival and the knights won’t bother you, but The Great One of this fortress inherited the messed up curiosity of our creators. After gaining nigh perfect understanding of the mechanical side of things, in his pursuits to perfect his designs, he dedicated his fortress to the study of the mind. Luckily for… everyone really, he is not a cruel one, so these practices ceased when we sealed ourselves from the surface world, but the old mechanisms remain, and this place was not built for your kind. The knight will no doubt guide you through the least harmful route, but don’t trust anything you see. The artifacts and chambers here will shake and squeeze your head to see what falls out before allowing you passage.” She warned the adventurers while fiddling with a couple of stone cylinders she had brought with her.
About the size of a wine bottle, the stone cylinders had all the usual marks of aureun technology and appeared a bit weighty for their size. Aside from the light patterns, the only detail of any interest on their dull gray surface was a wide seam running around the cylinder roughly in the middle.
Unit twelve grasped the both end of the artifact and gave it a slight twist, causing it to emit a high-pitched noise that sounded like it was ramping up in volume, much like the strange obelisks by the fort’s entrance. Just as the charging whine was about to reach its peak, the custodian twisted the ends in the other direction and killed the sound immediately. She then repeated the procedure with the other one before handing one to each adventurer.
“These are portable transilluminators, assuming you came here through the elevator, you have already seen their effects. What they do is emit a frequency range that’s matches certain parts of the soul spectrum and- why am I trying to explain this to you?... Twist thing, light flashes, ghosts appear, okay?” She exclaimed, returning to her belittling tone. “Should you run into any problems within these walls, what they conjure should be able to help for a while, which is why the knight asked me to go through the massive hassle of finding them for you.”
Anastacia immediately twisted her cylinder to see what happens, but unit twelve stopped her by grabbing the artifact and silencing it.
“NEVER – and I can not emphasize this enough – absolutely fucking never use these in the presence of the Wrath core, you cave-dwelling, knuckle-dragging shit!” The custodian freaked out for a moment looked like she considered hitting the necromancer with the no doubt priceless artifact. Her brownish orange eyes lost their color and became pearly white and the slight glow of her horn turned into a much darker hue, almost turning the entire crystalline horn black.
Taking a deep breath and once more remembering herself, she returned the transilluminator to Anastacia without even considering apologizing for her outburst. Not wishing to dwell on the matter, the custodian waited for a couple of seconds for her appearance to return to the usual before continuing.
She flicked the glass pearl she had been handling earlier at Leggy, who caught it between the tips of her fingers and stared at it as it flashed as if it was being repeatedly heated and cooled, much like during quest registration at the guild offices.
“The Venator now has a map to this place as well, but doesn’t have the experience the knight has, so I wouldn’t rely on her if I didn’t have to.” Unit twelve said, sounding slightly exhausted. “I have time for one more question, please make it quick so I can return to somewhere that isn’t a massive waste of time.”
Expecting the necromancer to ask about something useless again, Emilia placed her hand on Anastacia’s face to silence her while coming up with a better question. “What about the problem at the lower levels? Do you know anything about it? We saw a recording on the elevator and the person riding it called themselves ‘Eminence’”
“We make it a point to not talk to the enemy, debating and conversing is a practice for spineless wimps. So we have no idea who they are or what they want, nor do we care, all we know is that they refused to leave after being told to do so and escaped into the deeper parts of the fortress when we were done talking.” The custodian shrugged and smiled proudly. “What they have to offer isn’t a match for us, but their presence lingers in the machines and taints the space around them through means we haven’t figured out yet, so we are locked in a stalemate where neither side can approach the other. While they might have cut our access to The Great One, we have all the time in the world to wait for them to wither and die.”
“That really isn’t much to go with.” The priestess lamented while trying to find a pouch for her transilluminator.
Having shared what she knew, unit twelve headed out of the room with hurried steps. “War finds a way; they’re not leaving this place.” She snickered and disappeared into the corridor without so much as a farewell.
Anastacia swatted her friend’s hand off her face and immediately latched onto King and snuggled against the shiny new armor. There was absolutely no way she would leave him behind, no matter who she needed to go through for it. Of course, she still wanted to talk things out first, in case Erratic judgement was willing to gift King his freedom for solving the problem the adventurers were there to solve – but if things were as unit twelve suggested and nothing would come of bargaining, the list of ancient beings fate saw fit to pit against Anastacia would grow longer again.
But before that matter could even be brought to the table, there were others to undertake, the main one being actually getting anywhere close to the lower levels.
She would have also liked to have a chat with literally any other custodian about the links between necromancy and the patterns hidden under King’s armor and several other possibly world altering things that had been thrown at her like pieces of tidbit, but that needed to wait as well.
Slowly moving her focus back to the present, Anastacia noticed that Emilia was fiddling with her transilluminator. Every few seconds twisting it back and forth to have it make a sound but never fully activate.
“I have a theory about these things.” She muttered after noticing she was being paid attention to again. “King, you know what these do, right?”
The knight of stone nodded.
The priestess rubbed her brow while trying to put her thoughts into words. “If these are just small versions of the flashing pylons outside, taking into account what Brother Malus said about the simulacra and what the grumpy little thing let slip earlier. Do these show the two souls locked inside each simulacrum?” She asked and pointed at the cloaked simulacrum standing near her.
King neither confirmed nor denied what was being suggested, giving Emilia the feeling that she needed to show further proof before he would reveal anything he didn’t need to.
“Outside, one of the two people that appeared by you was wearing this armor, weren’t they?” She suggested and pointed at the odd non-simulacra armor arranged on the table. “So that one was the Aureun used as your ‘mind’ and the child is the one that’s stuck in the core you have on your chest.”
Gently pushing Anastacia aside, King approached the armor in question. He motionlessly stared at it for a good while, almost like he was trying to remember something. With an oddly wary and shaky hand, ran the tips of his fingers along the surface of the helmet and inspected his reflection on the slightly worn but still shiny metal trimming on it.
Without looking back to Emilia, he nodded again and pulled his hand off the armor.
“We can come and get it when we’re leaving, if you want.” The priestess smiled and gave King an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “All four of us that is, I’m not leaving you here either.”
Meanwhile, Anastacia had understood the implications of Emilia’s now confirmed theory, and more specifically, who she had seen by Leggy after the flash of light earlier. She quietly calculated the rough amount of bad karma she was about the get and gestured for the cloaked simulacrum to lay down on the workbench for a bit.
Hoping her plate armor clad moral guide didn’t notice, she plucked the core from within Leggy’s chest and swiftly slotted in another one from the few spare ones she had been given.
After making sure Leggy woke up, she discreetly dropped the old core and kicked it under a nearby shelf.
Before she had the chance to celebrate her stealthy exchange of companions, she could feel the furiously burning stare of the priestess on her back, scorching both her skin and conscience.
“Anna, what did you just do?” Emilia asked, knowing exactly what had happened and why, but hoping that the necromancer would at least own up to it.
Avoiding direct eye contact, Anastacia bounced her gaze between every small detail she could find in the room. “It had a crack in it, also I don’t want some smarmy asshole in her just… smarming around. Besides, his soul is already stuck in an eternal nightmare without an escape, what difference does it make if it’s doing that under there? If anything, I could be doing a nice thing if this one happens to be a lonely grandma or something!” She dug her own grave as fast as she could, fully aware that none of it would fly.
The priestess almost looked like she was in physical pain over the matter. She took several deep breaths, ready to say something after each one but whatever she had come up with didn’t seem like enough. She prayed for help from Sylvia and even had to take her gauntlets off to drag her hands across her face in frustration.
“Anna, no… Just… no.” She groaned in a mix of every possible emotion from disappointment to fury as several cracks appeared in her flawless and pure appearance. “Rosie and I are going to have a talk about this.”