With the same blinding flash of white light that they had appeared with, the fragments of Anastacia combined into the singular compact necromancer they belonged to. The lone stone chair slowly slid into its place with a mechanical thunk and the lights on it dimmed.
The startled necromancer stared blankly ahead, barely blinking and without words.
“Everything alright?” Emilia asked and handed the spear back to King.
Anastacia slowly turned her head towards her friend. “Do you ever wake up feeling like someone popped open your skull, took your brains out, tossed them down the stairs a few times and screwed them back on the wrong way around?” She asked.
“Throw in the taste of vomit in your mouth and a few scoops of soreness in every part of your body and you’ll get a fairly standard hangover.” The priestess smiled warmly and tossed Anastacia’s canteen to her.
Anastacia proceeded to cool the water with a bit of ice magic and poured most of it directly on her face to get rid of the uncomfortable blurry feeling the machine had given her. While she did get a drop here and there into her mouth, Emilia wasn’t particularly happy about the waste of the extremely valuable water they had yet to find a new source for.
Giving the necromancer a bit of time to recuperate, Emilia sat down on the edge of the platform to nibble on her rations. “So, what was it like on your end? Do you remember anything?” She asked.
“No… I think I was out for a lot of it, but there are flashes here and there, and I think the machine explained what was happening at one point, but I don’t remember hearing or seeing it. Something about spectrums and personality and decisions…” Anastacia explained the best she could, slowly getting her bearings once more. “Oh, and the door should be open now.”
Certain that telling the necromancer about anything that transpired would only be harmful for her and the conclusions the fragments had come to, Emilia simply nodded and kept their side of the story to herself.
After a brief rest, they made the decision to press on without stopping to make a camp yet, as they had who knows how much distance to cover and supplies for only so many days. They didn’t even really know how long they had been inside the fortress anymore, so to be safe, snacking on the go had to do, at least until they found a room with furniture that didn’t split its user into fragments based on their personality.
As Anastacia had said, the previously inactive door forwards now had a light shining on it. King waited for the rest of the party to gather their things and placed his hand on the circular plate to open the path.
The moment the slightest of gaps appeared between the stone slabs, a very distinct salty smell flooded into the chamber they adventurers were in. The overwhelmingly moist air carried a hint of sulfur, rust and enough salt that the adventurers were almost able to taste it in the air.
“Ew… What is that?” Groaned Anastacia and covered her nose.
Emilia frowned in deep thought. She recognized the smell, but it made no sense to run into in where they were. “It’s the sea…”
“The sea? But aren’t we ways away from any kind of a coast, and you know, so deep underground that we might be under what’s considered underground. How is the sea here?” The necromancer asked and peered down the still unlit corridor that didn’t appear any different from the kilometers of stone hallways they had passed.
The mechanical pulse of the fortress kept pushing the moist air at them in waves, each of which rekindled the slightly unpleasant stench.
“Yeah, there’s no way we’d be anywhere near a sea unless we walked for a couple of weeks without realizing it. Maybe there’s an underground water reservoir for whatever Erratic Judgement needed water for?” Emilia shrugged and followed King into the dark.
As the lights of the corridor slowly lit up, it revealed that the priestess’ suspicions were indeed correct, after only a dozen or so meters, the firm stone walls and ceiling changed into noting but a grid of light patterns that appeared to drawn on thin air, and still somehow held back an unknown amount of endlessly dark water, as if the entire corridor was a long bubble running across the bottom of the sea.
While the floor of the corridor remained neatly tiled, the terrain immediately on the other side of the paper thin, transparent walls was that of a seafloor. Barely lit by the patterns that protected the party from being crushed by the immense water pressure, the fine sand or sludge had the reddish color of rust and no signs of underwater flora or other life.
Perhaps against her better judgement, Anastacia touched the ‘wall’ between the light patterns and was both surprised and terrified to find that she could just poke her finger through it, into the unsettlingly warm water. She swiftly pulled her hand back and sighed in relief after seeing that she hadn’t unwittingly made a hole into the barrier protecting them.
“I am not enjoying this…” She muttered and aimed her lantern towards the void-like depths. The water was surprisingly clear, and the light reached far into the distance.
“Do you feel anything living in there?” Emilia asked a tad worriedly. Ever since almost being drowned by a fisher, underwater creatures had made her understandably nervous.
Anastacia closed her eyes for a second. “Not a thing. No fish, no bugs, no nothing.” She confirmed.
With wary steps, they pressed onwards along the bottom of the mysterious water reservoir, keeping an eye on King the entire time. The knight was the only one who knew for sure if there was anything swimming in the waters around them, and if he even so much as seemed like he might have seen something, the adventurers would bolt ahead and never look back.
Leggy kept vigilantly following Anastacia as closely as possible without stepping on her heels. She surveyed their surroundings with a keen eye and kept to herself for the most part, never straying more than two meters behind the necromancer. So quiet were the cloaked simulacrum’s steps that Anastacia had to ask her to make a noise every once in a while, or she would forget Leggy was there and almost have a heart attack whenever she turned around.
Around thirty minutes after they had entered the anxiety-inducing path, a sudden flash of light, almost like an explosion way off in the distance to their left caught the adventurers unprepared. Luckily in the couple of seconds it took for the pressure wave to reach the corridor, King managed to lift his new shield and Leggy spread her cloak to protect the necromancer from the fair amount of water that suddenly burst through the seams of the light patterns when they buckled under the pressure.
Once the patterns had resealed themselves and the water began to drain through the gaps between the floor tiles, the simulacra lowered their arms.
“Whew! That was close, right, Em-“ Anastacia was about to say, but the beyond disappointed, vacant gaze on the drenched priestess’ face made her shut up for her own good.
“Thanks, guys, very cool of you. Absolutely superb job.” She growled, cold sarcasm dripping from each word much in the same way as the water from her cloak as she pointlessly tried to squeeze it dry. “Do you have any idea what saltwater does to armor? I need to get this off and start cleaning it within the hour or it’ll rust right off me! King, you better tell me there’s a dry place we can make a camp in or I will tear myself a replacement armor from you!”
The knight of stone nodded and took a step back from the priestess.
“Really?” Emilia asked, still sounding annoyed but at least somewhat hopeful. “How long of a walk away?”
King either calculated or thought about the answer for a while before lifting up four fingers.
“Four minutes?” The priestess guessed.
King nodded again.
As soon as Emilia got the answer she wanted, she stormed into the direction they were heading in without waiting for anyone.
Anastacia chose to not point out something she had discovered very early in her and King’s relationship: King was completely and utterly unable to follow the passage of time past a few seconds he could easily count up to. Perhaps it was because of his thousands of years of life had warped his perspective of time, or some malfunction within him, but if the simulacrum didn’t have the sky as a reference or didn’t devote his focus entirely on counting seconds, he couldn’t tell the difference between a minute or an hour – or even several hours. An ill-fated game of hide and seek with goblins once had him sitting in a small cave for three days despite being told to come back if the goblins failed to find him within the hour.
Luckily his internal clock was only somewhat off and his estimated four minutes of walking was closer to fifteen, but regardless, the party reached a decent-sized dome-like stone structure with thick, watertight walls that provided some peace of mind from the terrible feeling of being at the bottom of a sea.
What seemed to be a resting spot of some kind, had a few stone blocks that at least worked as benches but probably did something else if poked in the right way, some sort of pumping equipment that must have had something to do with all the water around and a few other mechanisms neither of the adventurers could figure out a purpose for.
In the middle of the circular room, was a knee-deep indentation that almost looked like a firepit but couldn’t possibly be one, on the account of it being located in a closed room of a fortress made by a civilization that probably advanced past campfires well before its construction.
The doors to and out of the dome were particularly heavy-duty even for a machine fortress, which carried some implications neither Anastacia nor Emilia cared for. To at least slightly reduce the claustrophobic feeling, Emilia told King to leave them open.
“What do you think the explosion was for?” The priestess asked while tying a twine between two pieces of mystery equipment to use it as a clothesline for her uniform.
Anastacia shrugged. “Wouldn’t be surprised if it was just to spook us.” She was actively trying to resist fiddling with the mysterious mechanisms strewn about the dome.
To occupy herself, she took out the tool for removing pieces of armor from simulacra and popped off few of the larger pieces on King to scratch out the salt left behind by the dried seawater. It probably wouldn’t have been a problem for him, but she needed something to do.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
As she worked, her eyes happened upon Leggy. Out of curiosity, she placed the tool on the collar-like piece that attached Leggy’s cloak to her shoulders and watched it limply thunk on the floor as it detached from the simulacrum.
“Well, that’s fun. Guess you’re up next.” The necromancer said and clapped, genuinely excited that she would be able to properly get her hands on a second simulacrum.
As she neatly arranged King’s new armor on one of the benches, she happened to notice the shiny steel backplate of Emilia’s cuirass. Normally not visible because of the white cloak she refused to take off, but the priestess was at the time trying to spread it on the clothesline to dry it.
Immediately succumbing to her mischievous side, she snuck up to her friend and pressed the vibrating tool against the metal.
The priestess let out an uncharacteristic yelp and turned bright red. She hastily turned around glared down at the grinning necromancer.
“What? I thought it might come off.” Anastacia feigned innocence and waved the tool around.
Without saying anything, Emilia grabbed the bottom of the necromancer’s violet cloak, pulled it over her head, clamped Anastacia’s covered head under her arm, tore down the clothesline she had just set up to tie down her friend’s arms and cloak, and proceeded to effortlessly hoist the comparably small necromancer on her shoulder and toss her into the corridor they had just walked through.
Anastacia giggled like a maniac the entire time. She didn’t bother to fight back beyond some wiggling and accepted her punishment, thinking it was easily worth it to get to hear the priestess yelp.
“You’re staying there until I’m done, better hope that whatever happened out there was a one-time thing.” Emilia warned her friend and returned to what she was doing.
After setting up a new clothesline with a second piece of thread, hanging her cloak, belt, boots and socks on it and taking off her armor for cleaning. She sat down and began wiping down the chestplate without paying attention to the apologies echoing from the corridor.
“King, can we make a camp here or will this place just flood suddenly or something?” She asked. Fatigue had started to creep up on her after stopping and it might have been the evening already, or at least would be for sure by the time her equipment would be dry.
The knight of stone was busy intensely staring at the necromancer rolling around the floor of the corridor but turned to Emilia to nod. As he was about to turn back, he seemed to remember something and sprang up from the floor.
He walked over to the pump-like devise, inspected it for a while and pulled out a few parts to take a better look at them before slotting them back on.
As King expertly fiddled with the machine, the priestess put down her own work and wandered over to see what was going on.
For a while after he appeared to be done, nothing seemed to happen, but suddenly a new light flickered to life next to what Emilia had assumed was a spigot.
King gestured for her to touch the light.
Doing as she was asked; Emilia tapped the light with her finger and the machine woke up from its slumber. It let out a curious bubbling sound for a moment, accompanied by an occasional thump and a hiss. Soon enough, the noises subsided, and a lazy stream of water started pouring from the tap, slowly filling up a small basin by it and continuing to flow along a small groove on the floor, all the way to the indentation in the middle of the room.
“Why?” The priestess asked and kneeled to watch the water pour down from the machine.
King grabbed the already empty canteen he had carried for Anastacia, placed it under the stream and filled it partly before handing it to Emilia.
Suspicious of the whole affair, Emilia sniffed the water, but her nose had already gotten used to the salty smell, so she gained nothing from it. Warily tipping the canteen on her lips and tasting a tiny bit, she came to a conclusion that the water was fresh, cool, refreshing and clean as any spring water.
“So this thing somehow takes the salt out of the water? Good job.” She congratulated the simulacrum for at least temporarily relieving her concerns over being able to survive inside the fortress. “Go ahead and drag Anna back in, I’ll just toss her into the hole over there once it’s full.”
A while passed as Emilia intensely scrubbed every piece of her armor clean and oiled them just as meticulously. During this, Anastacia returned to her self-appointed job and cleaned both of the simulacra as well as she could. Though she was able to remove pieces from them now and finally had the chance to get her hands on Leggy, they didn’t have the time to pour several hours into it, so further inspections would have needed to be done later.
When it came the time to cook, the lack of fire or firewood left the adventurers in a bit of a pickle, at least until Anastacia figured out that she could use ice magic to drain what heat there was in the warm saltwater by stabbing one of her daggers through the wall of the corridor and then release the energy into King’s hands, who would then hold the pot to keep it boiling just the right amount. While it was far more complicated than cooking on the road usually was, it did work, and they were able to use some of the ingredients that would have been harder to enjoy raw or just unusable.
As they were cooking, Emilia acted on her threat and shoved Anastacia into the now full pool of water, forcing the necromancer to hang her own gear to dry as well.
They also witnessed a second explosion in the distance, but unlike the flimsy corridor, their stone dome shrugged it off without so much as a crack or a creak , further easing the nervousness of having to camp there for what they presumed was the night.
More concerning was the fact that the flash and pressure wave caused by the second explosion were considerably closer to each other than before, suggesting that the explosion happened closer as well.
King’s pantomime explanation of the purpose behind the explosions was tragically lost in translation, but it was apparent that at least they were something that was supposed to happen, instead of something nefarious or malfunctioning.
After their meal, there was the matter of disposing the vegetable peels and other scraps of food that weren’t edible. Usually just tossing them into the forest was the simplest and, in many ways, the best solution, but the lack of forests both underground and underwater was severe. Just leaving them in the corner was an option, but felt a bit rude towards the custodians of the fortress.
Anastacia had the bright idea to just put them all into a cup and chuck it into the water through the transient walls of the corridor, where it would presumably float to the top and drift forever along the surface of whatever underground nightmare sea they were surrounded by and not bother anyone.
Emilia didn’t exactly support the idea of just tossing trash into the sea, but hardly had any better ideas.
Wising to avoid the rest of the cleanup, the necromancer volunteered to do a bit of scouting while taking out the trash and see what the corridor ahead of them had to offer.
“Take Leggy with you. You’re just going to get lost and need adult supervision.” Emilia demanded before allowing Anastacia to leave anywhere.
“It is literally a single corridor, how am I going to get lost in a corridor?” The necromancer protested, less that she had to take Leggy along and more about the complete lack of trust.
The priestess sighed and handed a stack of bowls to King. “That just means there’s at least one wrong direction you can take. If you can, also avoid dragging any sort of massive problems our way while you’re out there. I’ll clean up a bit and see if King can do anything with any of the other gadgets here.”
“Avoid dragging any sort of massive problems out way…” Anastacia repeated with a mocking tone on her way out of the dome, but only after she knew Emilia couldn’t hear.
Despite changing her lighter spare clothing and leaving without the cloak, the temperature in the corridor was pleasantly warm for Anastacia. Even the stone tiles under her bare feet felt almost like they were being heated from below – a strange feature for a machine fortress, but the necromancer wasn’t going to complain.
However, the warm floor didn’t busy her mind for long, as she happened to stare at the endless void of dark water and remembered the less than relaxing location of their camp.
Aiming the light of her lantern into the water, she searched for anything that seemed like it was out of place or even hinted at there being anything besides water around her.
Uncloaked for the time being, Leggy had considerably more spring in her steps. She was nowhere near as quiet either, letting out a noticeable clacking noise every time her pointy foot hit the floor. Not recognizing the footsteps, Anastacia kept turning around to see who was following her more than once.
“Do you think there’s anything out there?” She asked and kept aiming her lantern across the barren seafloor around them.
Leggy immediately pointed up.
Already dreading what she would find, Anastacia aimed the cone of light directly up, where it collided with something absolutely massive, quietly sliding over them only about fifteen meters above the corridor. Her initial reaction was somewhere between a sigh and a muffled scream of terror, but she couldn’t tear her eyes or the light away from whatever it was.
Screaming internally the entire time, she watched the gigantic being moved across the water for over a minute. All she could see was a part of its underside, which consisted of a smooth stone surface of overlapping armor plates that were at least ten meters wide each. Though she didn’t see any of the usual light patterns, just the fact that she couldn’t tell that there was something above them made it fairly clear that it was a simulacrum of some sort, and if that was the case, it was without a doubt the largest one she had seen.
What must have been several hundred meters’ worth of mechanical creature passed over them before the massive slabs of stone slowly tapered to form a tail. For the last twenty or so meters of this tail, there were metallic canvas-like fins or sails, that resembled Leggy’s cloak in structure, but were around the size of a frigate’s sails.
“Reckon he got the note about us being here?” Anastacia whispered once she couldn’t find the underwater simulacrum with her lantern. “I can’t handle something that big coming after me again.”
Suddenly in a great hurry to get back to the safety of the sturdy stone dome, she chucked the cup of trash through the wall and started walking into the direction they had come from at a pace that bordered on running.
But her sprint would come to a halt well before she reached the camp, as six glowing orbs of light, each one as bright and large as a lighthouse’s beacon and arranged in two vertical lines of three, turned their gaze directly at her from the darkness above the path they were hurrying along. The water hid the rest of the simulacra’s form, but its absurd scale was clear from just the eyes.
Frozen from their attention, Anastacia stared back at the massive lights and could immediately tell that something was already wrong. Instead of the bright light blue hue typical for the ancient machines, the lights flickered in a sickly violet shade that at times seemed insufferably bright and only a second later darker than the pitch-black water itself. Staring at them actually felt bad, just like recording of the person called ‘Eminence’ in the elevator.
“We need to run.” Anastacia stated to the simulacrum with her and quickly glanced at their options.
Running back to the camp was definitely quicker, as it was only minute away, but what they had found was the definition of dragging massive problems their way, and Anastacia had her doubts about the dome withstanding an attack from whatever it was that stared down at them.
Running in the other direction saved Emilia and King, but there was no telling how far they needed to go, or if they could escape their pursuer in the first place.
Struggling to decide, Anastacia shoved the problem onto Leggy. “You’ve got the map, if you think we can make it to the other end, dash in that direction and I’ll follow. Otherwise we’ll go to the camp.”
Leggy immediately grasped the necromancer’s hand and darted away from the camp.
As she turned, Anastacia could see the gargantuan set of eyes lunge towards them, but only at a speed that gave her hope. Whatever it was that started chasing them, couldn’t move all too swiftly.
For maybe half a minute that felt like an eternity, they ran with all their might along the underwater corridor, cursing on every step and sparing their sanity by not looking back.
In their distress, they didn’t notice a strange noise that reverberated through the water and was only barely audible in the corridor. Had they heard it, it would have reminded Anastacia of the noise her staff had made moments before exploding and turning a large stone-scaled viper into lumps of rock. Hearing it would have also warned them of what was about to come, but all they managed to see was a second set of six lights appearing from the darkness in front of them and a brief flash of red as something shot over their heads at their pursuer.
Luckily Leggy had the clarity of mind to tackle Anastacia to the ground and shield her from the shards of stone that shredded the corridor behind them, as the red projectile collided with the tainted simulacrum and detonated with unthinkable force that erased a good portion of the web of light patterns that kept the water in bay.
Saltwater and rubble rushed into the corridor with such speed that it started pushing the adventurer and her simulacrum onwards. It would have no doubt filled the entire corridor in seconds, if it weren’t for the lifeless gigantic husk of the now destroyed, corrupted simulacrum that crash landed on top of the broken patch and mostly sealed it with its unfathomable size.
Despite Leggy’s best efforts, as their wet tumble came to an end, Anastacia bumped her head on one of the lager pieces of broken simulacrum and blacked out. The last thing she saw while laying on her back in the shallow pool that slowly drained away, was six healthy, light blue mechanical eyes staring down at her form high up in the water above.