Without saying a word, Anastacia and Leggy kept walking towards the chamber of The Great One, where Eminence was supposed to be locked in. They no longer busied themselves with the rooms along the corridor or pointless chatter about the peculiarities of the fortress they came across, but instead determinately marched deeper inside. Eating and drinking on the go and only seldomly stopping to take a nap when they absolutely had to, they covered ground even faster than they had with King and Emilia. It could have well been a day or four days as far as Anastacia was concerned, as for once, she was done with fooling around. When she was awake, she walked, when she no longer couldn’t walk, she slept until she could walk more. Leggy kept dutifully carrying their supplies and led the necromancer without hesitation.
They kept leaving behind crystals as breadcrumbs for the rest of the party, mostly containing just an update how angry Anastacia was for Eminence tormenting simulacra for what seemed like absolutely no reason at all. She could only assume that what Amora went through was what had either already happened to the other simulacra, or was going to happen sooner rather than later. If there really was no one else in the fortress sending messages to anyone, it was likely that the friendly spider simulacrum had been one of the last ones remaining.
Though the endless corridors mostly remained the same, one thing had changed as soon as the pair had left the communications post: a constant presence of corruption that had made itself known to Anastacia after hiding for the entire trip. It was an endless gnawing in the back of her mind that was without a doubt linked to the sickening shade of violet that plagued the fortress. It felt like it wanted to be noticed and found, as it cast a clear beacon for the necromancer to follow. Though the behavior of this presence was starkly different from necromancy in every way, every sense in Anastacia’s body that warned her of other necromancers was going off simultaneously and pointed her into the direction it was coming from. At times, it felt like there was some remote hint of necromancy in the air, but it quickly dissolved into the disgusting blight she couldn’t quite put a finger on but felt nonetheless eerily familiar.
The deeper they ventured, the clearer she could detect the mysterious presence in the world around them. It clashed with the stone of the walls, the metal of the simulacrum before Anastacia and wavered with the changes in the currents of the air. Though it somehow resonated with necromancy, the two could not interact. She allowed her powers to flare out frequently, but couldn’t push back against it. Similarly, the source of the presence must have noticed her powers, as it responded with a surge of its own every time this happened, but was also unable to affect Anastacia’s necromancy in any way.
While necromancy appeared to her as light-like radiance, unhindered by anything it couldn’t affect and slowly petering out with distance, this corrupted presence more resembled flames. It wrapped around her body but couldn’t do anything with it, however, though it clashed with everything physical, it seeped into and out of the walls and ancient machinery alike, flickering and waning seemingly at random. But perhaps the most curious thing about it was Leggy’s apparent immunity to it, as the venator’s mechanical body seemed to repel it even more so than Anastacia’s fleshy one.
While necromancy controlled bone, muscle and fat, the malignant power inside the fortress infected stone, metal, air and above all, thoughts. Even Anastacia could feel it tugging and pulling on her memories and feelings, occasionally bringing up things from her past she’d rather forget. Despite its clear agenda of trying to mentally crush her with whispered insults and threats she had once heard somewhere and memories of wrongs both done to her and done by her, the adventurer felt no pressure from it. She had been more disturbed by being randomly reminded of something stupid she had said while trying to get some sleep than by this clear attack on her will to live.
Once more letting her power surge to estimate their distance form their goal by Eminence’s response, Anastacia figured that they were getting close – in the scale of the fortress at least. She grasped Leggy’s arm and stopped her. “We’re getting close.” She said with a dismal look on her face. “You can just wait here if you want… You saw what happened to Amora, and I don’t know why you’ve been fine so far, but I don’t think you should push your luck with this.”
Leggy immediately shook her head and defiantly banged her chest with a fist a couple of times, unwilling to be left behind. Without hesitation, the simulacrum kept walking onwards and ignored any further pleas to stop.
Though she didn’t want to put her friend in harm’s way, Anastacia had realized that the weaponry available to her wasn’t exactly ideal for the situation. So far, she had yet to find any material for necromancy, and if that wasn’t an option, having Leggy there would easily more than double their prowess. Still determined to go through with her rushed and likely foolish plan on the off-chance hurrying saved even a single simulacrum or custodian somewhere in the fort, the necromancer stopped pressing the matter and welcomed the help.
As they had traveled, their descend deeper and deeper underground had become more and more noticeable. Ever since the first chamber after King’s personal quarters, there had been a slight, almost unnoticeable decline to the corridors, but it had slowly steepened to a point where it was now easy to tell they were heading down. Another change they noticed was an increase in diverging paths from their corridor. Every couple of hundred meters, a new path led in some direction, usually at a rather steep incline or decline, suggesting that the bedrock around them had been bored full of corridors and chambers that served some unknown function to support whatever was at the bottom of the fortress.
They passed vacant halls full of massive glass vats containing unknown liquids that were led downwards along countless pipes that ranged from barely as thick as a finger to ones more than a couple of meters wide. Some of these pipes ran along the wall of the main tunnel for some distance. The glimmery swirls in the slightly turquoise-tinted liquid, visible through windows in the metal pipes, were a magical sight and would have given hours of enjoyment to the necromancer had she been even slightly less determined to kill Eminence.
In other side corridors they saw massive workshops full of abandoned machinery that had ceased their autonomous work quite a while ago, but even in their slightly deteriorated state, were clearly several centuries, if not millennia ahead of any sort of attempts at industry aboveground. In their heyday they could have no doubt churned out an entire army of simulacra and the equipment for them in mere days – and likely had done exactly that.
Sometimes, the tunnel they traveled turned into a bridge crossing over immense halls full shelves containing countless glass pearls, exactly like the ones that were given to all residents of Valor, and likely containing more lost knowledge than what had been learned by others in the thousands of years after the fall of the Aureun Empire. These were but some of the sceneries unthinkable for anyone living aboveground that the pair had the privilege to witness.
Yet, each and every one of these great collections, workshops and halls were completely abandoned by both custodians and simulacra, and were filled with nothing but a very intense version of the mechanical song that echoed throughout the entire fortress. The few mechanisms that still worked, did so in the rhythm decided by the song, but did not partake in it. Though the pair was somewhere near the origin of the medley of sounds, their cause remained a mystery all the way to the end of the tunnel.
The corridor opened up to yet another vast chamber as per usual, however, what separated this one from the others was the thick mist completely obscuring the actual size of the room. They could see countless pipes and cables emerge into the room from the wall maybe twenty meters above them, but nothing further than that.
An ankle-deep layer of warm, clear liquid covered the floor. It slowly, just barely fast enough to be considered a flow, moved towards the walls where it drained down from a small gap between the wall and the floor. The liquid had a refreshing scent that smelled like a mix of mint and metal, and seemed a bit more viscous than just regular water, but not enough to feel oily.
The mist was cool in comparison and was quick to condense on Leggy and Anastacia’s stone armor. It hid everything else in the room, but constantly kept conjuring up moving shapes in the distance, which more than once tricked the necromancer by making her think she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. It also appeared to have a noticeable glow to it, which was enough to light up the entire space even without the help of the light patterns shining through the liquid on the floor.
As soon as they wandered away from the entrance, the mist hid the wall behind them and the only things left to provide direction for the pair were the pipes above them, as well as the sickening beacon of malformed necromancy ahead of them. For at least an hour they slogged onwards before seeing anything of note, and when they finally did, it provided them no comfort.
From over a couple of hundred meters away, well before they stood any chance of seeing it, Anastacia could feel a rotting corpse of something roughly human-like. She told Leggy to arm herself and prepared to use the corpse itself against whatever had made it, but as they got closer, any reason for immediate alarm was proven unnecessary, as the body was far from fresh.
The first thing they saw through the mist was the unmistakable silhouette of a crouched knight, and Anastacia, ever hopeful, tried to greet the simulacrum. No answer was given, as the knight had a large sword driven through its chest, which made the necromancer take a step back. Seeing that the knights themselves weren’t immune to the corruption made her very concerned for King, but it very much seemed like an issue Emilia knew how to tackle, so her being with him did a great deal to ease Anastacia’s mood.
Anastacia gave the sword a bit of a tug, but it obviously wouldn’t budge since it was about as big as her and quite a bit heavier. She gave the knight a quick hug and moved on to the corpse by it. The orange crystalline horn on its forehead and the stone armor similar to the one Anastacia was stuck with was a dead giveaway of the body’s identity as one of the twenty-seven custodians.
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“Been here for at least five weeks, I’d say. Maybe more.” The necromancer estimated and covered her nose. The scent of the liquid covering the floor did a good job covering the rotten smell, but her heightened sensitivity to it allowed the stench to push through when she stood too close. “How do you think these people feel about desecrating corpses?”
As much as she hated the idea, fate had delivered her the perfect ammunition for ridding the world of Eminence – to be used as literal ammunition if need be. Some quick calculations between the horribleness of cutting up a corpse and using it as a weapon, or trying to manage without it, came out strongly in favor of slight mutilation of someone’s remains. Even Anastacia couldn’t convince herself to not do it, regardless of how disgusting it was.
“Sooo… I don’t really know how to go about this, but I need a hand.” She mumbled to the corpse and took a few steps away before tearing off its right arm entirely. The necromancer then peeled off the rotting flesh as well as she could before placing the bones into the liquid on the floor to lessen the stench.
Next step of the preparation was to use her enchanted knife to scrape off the bits of tendon and flesh that still stuck to the bones, and finally treating the surface with a bit of fire magic – mostly because that dried the bones made the having them around feel less gross. Anastacia considered spending a while carving some patterns on the bones, but decided that they were in too much hurry and since she didn’t have to deal with another necromancer, they weren’t necessary.
Moving the bones around as they naturally arranged into the positions they had been in life, Anastacia got used to the power she hadn’t used in a few days now. Her original idea was to use bones as a weapon on their own, but seeing Leggy try and pull the sword stuck on the knight gave her an idea. Ushering the venator to move, she wrapped the skeletal hand around the handle of the massive sword and effortlessly pulled it out of the knight’s chest.
Swinging it around was a bit clumsy, but definitely seemed like it could be effective compared to the knives she carried. With a few more swings she had gotten used to the weight and was able to move the sword as quickly, if not quicker, than its original owner.
While training, she stared at the deactivated knight, who seemed somehow sad now. Even with the sword through it, it had had an aura of might about it. Leaving the ancient warrior unarmed seemed wrong, so the necromancer placed her war hammer in the knight’s hand.
“You hold on to that one while I borrow yours.” She whispered and patted the knight on the shoulder before taking her leave into the mist.
For a while longer, they trudged towards the beacon of corruption in the mist, Anastacia using her newly acquired bones to drag the massive sword and Leggy keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings. Both of them knew that their journey was now measured in meters rather than hours of walking. From the pair of remains, the distance to their destination was only about a kilometer, and soon enough, they could see a web of light patterns seemingly hovering in air.
The web was of the same type as the one that had held the water back along the road in the bottom of the underground sea, but far denser and burned much, much brighter. It had a slight curvature to it, suggesting that it may have surrounded something, and that something may well have been Eminence, who was supposedly trapped in the chamber of The Great One.
“Well, here goes.” Anastacia shrugged, unable to come up with anything witty at the time, and stepped through the mesh of light. It had some resistance to it and tugged on her hair slightly.
Leggy followed her through it, but had to work considerably harder for some reason. The lights fizzed and sparked when they touched her body, leaving behind some scorch marks. Strangely enough, she could push on the web itself to lever herself through it, as once something was inside, it could no longer pass through.
Once on the other side, they could see the silhouette of a massive orb, about ten meters in diameter, seemingly either levitating above a pedestal or being kept up by the countless pipes and cables running into it from every direction. As they got closer, they could see the strange liquid that covered the floor ebb from the orb and flow over the edges of the pedestal onto the floor.
Crafted from countless metal and stone pieces, seamlessly attached to each other, the surface of the orb had by far the most elaborate light patterns on it that Anastacia had ever seen. Countless cores were attached to the absolute height of aureun engineering, many of the much larger than the ones typically used in simulacra. The heat generated by the orb was intense even from a few meters away, and the sounds from the mechanisms, no doubt unparalleled in intricacy and quality, under the smooth surface produced a constant low hum as well as a ticking sound that seemed to count seconds – or may just as well have been the sole thing in the world that made sure each second passed in a second without fluctuation, as no one probably knew anymore.
“Allow me to introduce you two; Anastacia, behold, The Great Commander Erratic Judgement! Erratic Judgement, meet Anastacia, The Failed White One.” Someone suddenly spoke in a distorted and grainy voice.
It took a second for Anastacia to recognize the person only a couple of meters away from her. They were wearing an oversized violet tailcoat with sleeves long enough to reach the floor and a three-eyed skull helmet with branch-like horns. This was all she had time to register before swinging her massive sword and splattering the person against the stone pedestal. Eminence’s metal armor stood no chance of taking the blow and caved in like it was made of paper. Anastacia swung once more and crushed the shiny silver helmed against the floor for good measure.
Caustic, dark violet, almost black blood poured into the liquid on the floor as Eminence collapsed and died on the spot.
Having very hard time comprehending and believing what had happened in the past two seconds, the necromancer stumbled backwards but was caught by Leggy. “That can’t have been it, right?” She whispered and stared at the bleeding pile of gore she had created.
“And so, Eminence was defeated by the one of no color.” Eminence’s voice spoke as he walked out of the mist, unharmed, and stepped over what was definitely his own corpse. “And they all lived happily ever after.”
Again, seeing no reason to talk, Anastacia immediately swung her sword and decapitated the corrupted being. Eminence’s body took one more step before falling over next to the other body.
“What the fuck is this...” The adventurer asked and watched the second body bleed just like the first one still did.
“Yet again, the hero claimed her victory over Eminence, bringing peace to all the kingdoms of the world.” Eminence spoke again and just like before, appeared from the mist, still in one piece. He kicked the second body gently and turned to Anastacia. “The end.”
Still choosing violence over words, the necromancer threw a ball of fire directly at Eminence’s face and let Leggy move in and stab him through the eye in his forehead. Again, this seemed to immediately kill him and he flopped on the floor when Leggy kicked him a bit further away.
“With the villainous Eminence defeated, the hero returned to the King and claimed her reward.” Eminence said as he yet again stepped from the mist, this time with obvious derision in his voice. “Claiming the princess’ hand in marriage, she rode into the sunset.”
This repeated a few more times, allowing Anastacia to burn through a fair bit of her anger before even considering doing anything else.
Starting to get the hint that maybe her tactic wasn’t all that helpful, Anastacia finally stayed her weapon. “You have five seconds to explain!” She roared and prepared for yet another swing.
Eminence tilted his head slightly and met her stare with his pitch-black eyes. “Explain what? You seem to prefer simple answers and appear to have many of those.” He said and gestured towards the bodies.
“What is happening? Who are you? Why are you here? Why are you such an asshole and why shouldn’t I just keep killing you until this room is full of bodies? For now, I have more but let’s start there.” Listed the adventurer, still keeping an eye on the corpses.
Eminence’s laughter was extremely uncomfortable to hear, it crackled and screeched as if the world itself was trying to kill the sound. “These are fine questions indeed, but in an awful order. Let us begin with an introduction to keep the story coherent. Though you found the message I left for you, I shall repeat myself. I am Eminence, The Grand Sage of Entropy. I am here for naught but a chat, suggestion and a test – one which The Great Commander has failed already, but you seem fit for it as well. The beautiful thing about the great beings of this realm is that disturbing one lures in others… But let us not get sidetracked, as the pages keep turning and the final one approaches! I don’t think of myself as an asshole, but maybe I have become somewhat irate… I’ve been stuck here for a while, after all. And as for killing me, you already have the answer. No crown of white, no shroud of red, you hold no power over my life in this story of ours.” He answered rather uselessly.
Anastacia considered killing him just because his answer was annoying, but it wouldn’t have achieved anything. “Why are you doing this? Since you seem to know me, is it just to get at me? Trust me, that’s not something people tend to survive.” She threatened the strange being.
Eminence’s presence in the mortal realm seemed unwanted, and it felt like something was trying to erase him at all times. However, something felt odd, for the supposed source of the corruption, he was strangely painless to be around. Anastacia had expected that even looking at him would have been enough to get a migraine, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“You? Oh no, you are a lucky coincidence. I was here for The Great Commander.” He explained and gestured towards the massive orb of stone and metal. “He was… not inclined to accept my proposal and, well, here we still are – well out of pace. Maybe you would see more eye to eye with us?”
“Do you have any idea how many times some weird fuckers have tried to offer me a deal for world conquest or whatever they were after? And after what you’ve done here, I’m not going to do shit for you.” The adventurer scoffed at the suggestion.
“What would we do with a world? Trust me, me and my people have no interest in taking power from the rightful rulers of this realm. They can keep their little thrones and all the land they see fit for all we care. None of that will help them when the end comes.” The Grand Sage shook his head and started to aimlessly wander around as he spoke. “We have no land to offer you, no great armies or unimaginable riches to give away. All I can give you is an invitation to be among those who stave off the inevitable. A thankless job, but the only one that matters when the story is coming to a close.”
Anastacia lowered her sword, almost amused by the idea. “Really now, the world is ending? Is that what you’re saying?”
“All things must come to an end, and that, dear child, is a kindness. However, it doesn’t mean nothing can be done to ward off the night. We are devoted in delaying the final chapter for as long as we can, whatever it might cost.” Eminence sighed and spoke with a melancholy tone. “It may be hard for someone such as you to see, but this world, its realms, its gods and its creatures are winding down. The great beasts of old are extinct, vast kingdoms have turned into squabbling little nations, great mages and warriors of legend are nothing but fairytales, necromancers themselves are a pale shadow of what they once were… How long until the forests shrivel and die, how long until the last vein of ore is dug up, how long until the next step of decay is irreversibly taken? And the gods? The gods do not care.
“We of the violet sect have seen the halls of those who were above gods and found nothing but death and decay. We have stood at the edge of what is and what isn’t, and we have seen that edge crumble into the void, inch by inch, meter by meter. We have seen the end of this story, and have chosen to not accept it, not yet…”