Anastacia felt extremely bad hanging back from the fight. Every now and then she had the chance to give the nameless necromancer a momentary respite by throwing a bit of fire as a distraction or freezing the liquid on the floor to impede Eminence’s movement, but that didn’t make her feel any less useless. Nor did the fact that her repressed necromantic powers apparently eclipsed the part of them she had accepted by much more than she had thought. Watching someone with enough power to just shrug off anything she could have tried was awe inspiring, and must have been what the inquisitors had felt confronting her. At first, she thought of it as a showcase of how much of a bunch of morons they had been for even attempting to challenge her, but the truth started to slowly dawn on her. Almost every single inquisitor, blue or red, had gotten much further against her than she could have ever hoped to get if she, for whatever reason, had to fight her unfortunate rejected and forgotten side. Unlike her, they were disciplined and devoted to their gimmicks, which must have increased their effectiveness in battle massively. If anything, she was incredibly fortunate none of the inquisitors were even all that close to Coquelicot in strength, as the remaining red inquisitor probably could have put an end to her nonsense if she absolutely had to, especially if she wasn’t limited by her skeletal appendages.
Though the nameless necromancer was still fairly crude in her from, she obviously utilized some basic techniques Anastacia had once been taught but had since forgotten because of her distaste for the people teaching her. She stood almost completely still a fair distance away from Eminence, constantly keeping him in bay with some of the larger tools in her seemingly endless supply of weapons hidden in her clothes, and any time there was a mistake to be capitalized on, she did so, often tearing off a limb from the sage. Yet none of this seemed to bear any fruit in terms of actually ridding the world of him. For every lost body part, a new was formed and for each moment wasted, the corruption gained ground and its tendrils reached closer to the necromancer.
“Why do you resist me? You were created but a moment before, but claim the authority to further doom the world you don’t belong into by standing in my way. What manner of tainted creature could you possibly be, to adopt such a villainous stance from birth?” Eminence mocked the necromancer continuously while only barely protecting himself from being decapitated by the giant sword, which had turned into a blunt instrument over the course of the fight.
The nameless necromancer, however, seemed deaf to all of this. She did not respond to comment, only taking a quick glimpse at Leggy here and there while never giving her opponent a moment to rest.
“Are you perhaps doing it just to save these inconsequential beings that have gathered here? Statues covered in blinking lights and a brat choosing selfish desires over the good of the world? To continue their meager, unimportant stories at the cost of the world itself?” Eminence kept inquiring in a derisive tone that no doubt slowly instilled decay into the minds of anyone who heard it. “It matters not. We have accounted for the gods themselves to lay their wrath to stop our plans, pretending that some apparition without a story could stand in our way is downright hysterical. Perhaps it could even be worth the wasted time to make this an example, show what we are prepared to do to prevent villains such as you from hastening the inevitable end? Perhaps I should-“
Suddenly the sage stopped speaking and leaped back to free himself of the barrage. He turned his gaze into the darkness, roughly in the direction Anastacia and Leggy had originally approached from, and stared into the distance. Anastacia could feel a waver in the necromancy-like power Eminence used to manipulate things around him, not necessarily a weakening in it, but a tie cut from something.
“Ah… I see.” He chuckled and sighed sounding somewhat impressed. “It appears I have ignored something formidable, thinking it inconsequential. The pieces in play were different from what I assumed… There might be something to your name after all, Great Commander. From the claws of certain defeat, you have freed yourself and balanced the scales.”
Anastacia could already envision Emilia and King just furiously punching the crap out of something weird they had found and it turning out to be something important to Eminence – like the weird bleeding creature that had tried to find her earlier.
While this had been happening, Apple had been sitting still in the darkness she had been flung into. The original adventurer had assumed she had been pouting over their fight and refused to help, but she didn’t have time to go and drag her back since she needed to keep an eye on her other copy, in case of slipups. Apple was definitely alright and moved slightly every now and then, so she was in no need of rescuing either. However, in the silence created by Eminence backing out, Anastacia could hear someone sing along the distant thumps and hums of the fortress. She couldn’t make out any words, or tell if they were in any language she understood, but it was without a doubt someone’s voice and not another mechanism joining the song.
The nameless necromancer must have grown tired of waiting and approached Eminence to continue keeping him on the defensive. For whatever reason, the shroud of darkness around him now felt weaker than before, and each attack by the necromancer cut just a bit deeper than before. After a few more parried blows, the sword suddenly sank directly into the sage’s chest, completely unimpeded. He let out grunt of agony that quickly turned into laughter.
With a few flaps from his massive wings, while stuck on the sword, he cast out a torrent of air, filled with violet feathers he kept shedding on every movement. Most of them plunged into the liquid on the floor or harmlessly fluttered down in the distance, but a single one found its unfortunate mark, stabbing its almost metallic shaft through the nameless necromancer’s forearm, which she had shielded herself with.
Immediately, her grasp on her weaponry released. The countless shards and pieces of bone hidden in her clothes started dropping into the liquid by her feet and the arm grasping onto the sword collapsed. It wasn’t uncommon for pain to disrupt necromancers as it ruined their focus, but that wasn’t the case with the nameless one. Anastacia could feel her copy’s powers twist and decay into something else, something that most definitely was not necromancy.
The nameless necromancer tried to pull out the feather, but in the couple of seconds it had been there, it had already burned itself onto her flesh and even touching it caused immense agony. Regardless, she gritted her teeth, grabbed onto it and tore it out, tearing open a large wound on her arm in the process. She collapsed from the pain almost immediately, but at no point let out any kind of a sound.
“Leggy, get her out of there! I’ll cover you!” Anastacia jumped into action, dashed across the floor while trying to come up with a plan of attack. She wasn’t familiar with all the weaponry the nameless necromancer had carried, but material was still material. She collected it all into a single large lump of bone and began hammering Eminence with it as hard as she could, hoping it would do anything.
Meanwhile, Leggy dived forwards to get between Eminence and the nameless necromancer to shield her form the corrupting gaze, but as soon as she tried to touch the hunched over girl, the necromancer dragged herself away.
“Please do not touch me!” The nameless necromancer pleaded and tried to hid the wound and her face with her white robes, but already a sickeningly violet patch was starting to appear on her sleeve, where what was previously blood trickled through the fabric. “Leave me, pretty machine, stay back and save yourself. I’m sorry I failed…”
Such foolish pleads fell on deaf ears with Leggy, who picked up the necromancer and swiftly carried her closer to the giant floating stone and metal orb. She quickly checked up on Anastacia, who honestly wasn’t doing terribly with her method of bludgeoning and yelling obscenities now that something made Eminence’s powers wane, and started trying to coax the nameless necromancer to show her wound. After all, Leggy now had ample experience with fixing this particular pattern of human.
“I’m sorry… so sorry…” The nameless necromancer wept and further hid into her robes. “Please, just leave me alone. I’m useless.”
The simulacrum kneeled next to her and gently slid the stained sleeve out of the way to reveal the wound. Jagged and torn open, the injury should have been exceedingly painful, but the necromancer didn’t seem to be in much pain anymore – physically at least. Even more alarming than that, was the violet color of both the flesh and the blood trickling out of it. The corrupted veins along her arm were starkly visible under her pasty skin, and seemed to be slowly spreading out from the wound. Leggy ran her finger along one and could feel the same corrupting force that Eminence’s uninterrupted stare caused. The vile color had spread almost to the necromancer’s elbow and kept steadily climbing towards the shoulder.
“It’s all hopeless. I will die alone… in the dark.” The nameless necromancer kept uttering faintly. “As a failure.”
Realizing there wasn’t much she could do about the injury, the venator hoped she could at least comfort the girl. She moved the necromancer’s arms and lifted her head, just in time to see the last traces of turquoise disappear as her eyes turned pitch black and the death of what little dim glimmer they had gained while the two had briefly familiarized. Tar-like violet ooze began flowing from the corners of her eyes, and she no longer reacted to seeing the simulacrum – that is, if she could see Leggy anymore in the first place.
Suddenly the necromancer’s despair started to turn into panic, she began looking around and frantically searching for something by feeling the floor around her. “Where are you?! Did you leave me too?! It’s so dark…” She wailed and only calmed down when Leggy forcibly picked her up and she could latch onto the stone and metal armor.
Witnessing some of this while fighting, and slowly feeling the apathetic sluggishness grow once more, Anastacia knew that they would very soon be in trouble if they didn’t get help. “Apple! Now would be a really good time to do something! Anything!” She yelled into the general direction the other copy had disappeared into.
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For a moment, just long enough for Anastacia to think Apple was simply going to ignore them out of spite, she received no answer. However, right as she was about to call out again, Apple’s voice rang out from the darkness.
“Doth not hurry perfection, dearest original one. It merely took me some time to strip my metaphorical gloves in preparation for ramifications of such an impolite attack on my person. There were deals to bargain, pacts to make and other formalities to address.” She explained, sounding oddly gleeful for the dire situation. “But as the feathery shithead shabbaroon himself construed, Erratic Judgement is no simpleton and the scheme concocted is more complicated than that of a last stand. I would wager many acorns on our host having someone capable of ending this humdrum wank wizard, and our purpose is to keep him here and occupied while the other pieces on this board move to their places.”
“A ludicrous suggestion. Admittedly, there may be a play of delaying me in progress, but leaving here is but a matter of time. What plots The Great Commander has schemed only exist for the vain hope of saving himself, he has no means to defeat me, and he knows this.” Eminence scoffed at the suggestion, but something about his voice seemed nervous or even worried. He parried yet another spiteful blow from Anastacia’s barrage with his arm and had to relocate a bit further back to not get crushed by the next one. “One of three has already fallen, the two will soon follow.”
Apple’s maniacal laughter echoed from the darkness seemingly without a direction, until suddenly, the light patterns on the floor flashed incredibly bright and revealed a spot in the darkness, only a few meters away from the sage, and standing in the middle of it was the most arrogant of the three necromancers. Her tattoos burned bright blue and further illuminated the smug grin on her face. “Which is precisely why I have arranged assistance.” She said and began reciting the arrangements she had made. “Heed the call of thine Queen, pillars of our world, voiceless, abused and thankless. Upon my bosom thy weary heads rested, kind words I whispered and halcyon dreams I gave to the restless. Quakes of the earth, wildfires, eclipses and thunderstorm. A common enemy threatens our kingdom, so come, and through me receive a form.”
She clicked her fingers while pointing directly up, and a massive bolt of lightning struck the very tip of her charred finger, but curiously stopped there, only leaving behind a pulsating orb of light that gently floated down to hover near Apple’s face. “Potential unleashed, child of differences and harbinger of storms – always first to come for The Queen’s embrace. Thunder, my dear.” The necromancer stated.
The orb quickly took form as a flashing and sparking copy of Queen Apple, and the two gently tapped their foreheads together. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the lightning jolted away, this time directly at Eminence. Bouncing around as bolts of electricity, the orb traveled between the extremities of the sage’s body, every now and then taking Apple’s form and unleashing a painful arc of electricity at its target.
Apple then spread her arms as the floor around her shattered, shaking the entire room as if a massive earthquake had hit it. The now broken shards of aureun technology around her started moving on their own, clustering and piling up until two forms took shape besides her; one made entirely from stone and one from metal, but both crudely emulating their summoner in their own ways. “Twins Metal and Mineral – unjustly separated through mortal meddling. Carved and crushed, melted and bent to shape for selfish needs.” Apple sang as the two golems hastily hugged her and rushed on to engage their enemy. Already blighted by the very localized thunderstorm, The Great Sage fell over as the pair tackled him.
Continuing her chant, Apple flicked her finger to create the smallest of fireballs, which couldn’t have lit even dry grass. However, it quickly expanded to the same shape as the other three elementals and hovered above the liquid to avoid fizzling out. “Always the charmer, Fire – rightfully feared and all consuming, but gentle and hardworking.” The Queen said and smiled as the burning apparition took her hand to kiss it before joining the others and filling the room with the horrible smell of burnt feathers.
“Treated as naught but a mantle for the wicked and foul, used to hide crimes and misdeeds from prying eyes. Deemed guilty by association by those preferring the brighter of the sisters – Dark, be free of this cursed miscreant and go cast your shadow on those who need it.” She finished her little chant, as the room suddenly grew brighter.
In only a couple of seconds, the darkness cast by Eminence had dissipated entirely and the faintly glowing mist surrounding everything left the sage helplessly out in the open, unable to hide himself should he need a moment. Before entirely disappearing, the darkness itself briefly took a rough human form before Apple and bowed.
“Thee will keep the pest occupied and buy time for our gracious rotund host. Should this assumption of mine prove correct, a relief will arrive sooner or later.” Apple instructed the elemental apparitions and started to lazily saunter towards Anastacia, Leggy and the nameless necromancer.
“What the fuck was that?” The original Anastacia asked and stared at the absolute mayhem her copy had caused. While Eminence still appeared to recover from his injuries, it had become far slower for him to do so and the apparitions seemed utterly unrelenting. Whenever one of them began to show signs of the corruption, the others would unhesitatingly destroy it, and a new one would rise to replace it only a moment later. The laughter that had mocked the necromancers’ efforts was now gone as well, and Eminence no longer appeared as untouchable without the darkness that had followed him. “Some kind of summoning? When have I picked that up?”
“Oh, nothing of the sort.” Apple laughed and wiggled her fingers as the lights on her skin died down. As she moved, she started shedding a glass-like layer of skin from the burn scars that Anastacia had thought to be tattoos, but on closer inspection, were created identically to the burn running from the core in her shoulder to her palm. “’Tis only natural for powerful queen, such as I, to have some forces of nature under a handy quid pro quo. Of course, thou would not understand such things, thee art queen in little more than name.” She explained and passed Anastacia without bothering to even look at her way.
Muttering that she would quid pro kick her arrogant copy’s ass if her attitude didn’t change, Anastacia followed Apple to see if they could figure out what was wrong with the third one while Apple’s conjured allies still kept Eminence busy.
Leggy lowered the nameless necromancer down for the other Anastacias to see, but didn’t let go of her hand. The darkened veins had spread all the way up her arm and were starting to poke out from under her collar. Her lips had turned blue, her eyes were completely black and whatever she was seeing most definitely didn’t correspond to what was going on around her. The necromancer’s panicked stare bounced around the surroundings, focusing on empty points in the mist.
Anastacia kneeled and tried to touch the nameless necromancer’s neck, but her hand was slapped away by the necromancer’s startled blind flailing. She could also feel a power very similar to Eminence’s suddenly try and take ahold of her mind, bringing up random memories and thoughts, but not explicitly bad ones like the sage. While Eminence caused apathy and weakening by dragging up the deepest tragedies and buried bad memories, the new power rekindled Anastacia’s memory of what coffee tasted like, the lightly smoky scent of the tavern at Rosie’s inn and the smooth hum of King’s internals at rest – all of them Anastacia’s favorite things in their own ways. Despite the obviously morbid situation, the memories did plenty to lift the constant burden Eminence’s presence passively held on her.
Anastacia turned to Apple. “Well, what are you waiting for? Just do a thing and fix her.” She said and shook her hands in a way that felt like it could be mystical in some way.
“What? How would I know what to do?” The queen asked and took a step away.
“Since you appeared, I’ve seen you drain the corruption out of Leggy, instantly grow plants and just summon all sorts of things. Why wouldn’t you know what to do?” The adventurer frowned, fully assuming that Apple’s demigod-like abilities were without a single gap.
“Why would I be able to repair people? People art disgusting. I can build thee a simulacrum, change weather, blot out the sun, make a second moon, turn a desert into a forest, move mountains and boil eggs perfectly, but if it can not be fixed with a bit of bandaging and a kiss, we art out of luck.” Apple embellished her talents. “Perhaps, you could remove the arm?”
After considering amputation for a while longer than she cared to admit, Anastacia took a better look at the wound. The sides of it had already started to heal, and upon even closer inspection, were slowly regrowing in front of her eyes.
“Though of course, thou could simply cease her agony.” Apple suggested, clearly not too interested in the necromancer and instead slowly inching her way closer to Leggy. She could easily see that Anastacia violently disagreed with the idea even before saying anything. “Remember that both she and I art naught but copies, we have no life outside of these walls. She herself said her life to be of no consequence. Besides, wit-“
Apple’s justification was interrupted by Leggy, who took out one of the white crystal fragments she and Anastacia had stolen earlier, and threw it at Apple in disagreement or protest. The impact itself was less than nothing and the crystal harmlessly bounced off the queen’s skin, but the damage to her pride was almost fatal. Holding back tears, she sank to her knees and stared at the floor, unable to handle Leggy’s clear preference for the nameless necromancer.
Anastacia rolled her eyes at what seemed to be a very genuine heartbreak and turned her focus back to the nameless necromancer. She was about to call her name to see if she would react, but only then realized she had never given one. “Uhh, hey, you. Can you hear me?”
The necromancer’s flailing stopped for a moment. “Me? Y… yes? I think.”
“That’s good enough, I guess.” The adventurer shrugged and checked up on the still very much ongoing fight between Apple’s elementals and Eminence.
Though he was being overwhelmed, between his inability to die and ever spreading corruption that slowly worked its way through the elementals, The Great Sage held his own – but only barely. The confidence he once had was all but gone and shrieks of pain echoed in the hall. Had one been following the fight, they could have seen Eminence nervously stare into the distance, and slowly change his plan from killing all three necromancers and Erratic Judgement, into fleeing the cage they had been locked into. Whatever joy or sense of achievement he would have gained from their deaths was no longer worth the pain. Yet despite a quick victory being in the cards now, The Great Commander kept his cage locked, presumably waiting for whatever he had created the necromancers to buy time for.
Figuring that the situation was still under control, Anastacia continued trying to help her nameless copy. “Can you see me?” She asked and waved her hand in front of the necromancer’s face.
“N… no… I can only see the four others, and they can see me… I’m sorry…” The nameless necromancer answered ominously and cringed in agony.
“The four others? Who?” Anastacia puzzled.
Starting to breathe more rapidly and cling onto the simulacrum hard enough to make her fingers bleed, the necromancer tried her best to close her eyes, but instead could only stare at what she now saw. “Tekhelet, Palatinate, Byzantium, Sumire… They know I can see them… Help…” She whispered before screaming in terror until she passed out a moment later and could finally close her eyes.
The adventurer scratched her head and glanced at Eminence. “We’re finally starting to kind of win this thing, but why do I feel like we’re just transcending from royally fucked to something worse?” She asked from Leggy and helped her get a better hold of the nameless necromancer.