Unsurprisingly, for Anastacia and Emilia, the first night sleeping in a real bed in a while was doomed to end far too soon for their liking. Gilbert gave them every last second of rest he could, but they needed to be on their way to Valor by noon, partly to make sure they would reach a reasonable campsite and partly because the townsfolk’s patience for necromancers was running exceedingly thin. The disagreeable innkeeper had made it very clear that he would not be loaning his rooms to them for a day longer than he absolutely needed to, and ever since the town had returned to normal, the other residents had been very open about driving their guests out sooner rather than later.
So, a while before the sun hit the peak of its meager arc, the three adventurers, their two simulacra companions and an additional necromancer hit the road towards the ancient path through the forest they had used to get there days earlier.
Out of the six, Anastacia was the only one strictly against the arrangements made on the evening before. Much to her annoyance, Iris followed her every step with great intrigue, just out of arm’s reach – not that it actually brought her much safety. While the inquisitor had fully bought into the idea of there being something she could learn from her, Anastacia had not.
“Remind me, why do I have to let her follow me again?” Asked the necromancer supposedly responsible for teaching the other.
Emilia gave her best official Church of Sylvia-branded smile and placed her hand on her chest as if preparing to invoke some higher power or cause. “Because otherwise I’ll tell Rosie that you didn’t.”
“You can’t just keep using that as a reason for everything!” Anastacia exclaimed.
“Can and will.” Emilia shrugged. “But, if you want more reasons, consider it a favor for me. Besides, all I’m asking from you is to tolerate Iris and help her make a new pair of wings.”
Anastacia groaned in response. “And what exactly is it that she’s supposed to learn from me?”
The priestess paused for a while to think but never let her smile fade even a bit. “Oh, nothing specific. But do you not consider yourself the best-case scenario for necromancers? Surely there is something you’re doing correctly, if that is the case?” She finally gave a noncommittal answer that didn’t really answer anything.
While that much was true, Anastacia still didn’t know what she could possibly teach Iris. Things like basic morals she thought most necromancers struggled with weren’t something she knew how to put into words, and the value of people’s lives seemed like it wouldn’t have caught on all too well.
“How about you tell me how is it that you’re able to tame the simulacra? Typically, when we come across them, it doesn’t go well for one of us.” Iris suggested. She had been somewhat wary of the two machines accompanying her teacher for as long as they had been walking, for the same perfectly reasonable reasons anyone would be. However, in this case, it was a stroke of luck, as Anastacia would have in no case allowed her to touch them. “Does having them around not unnerve you? They move around so… unnoticeably. If I’m not looking directly at them, they could be anywhere!”
Anastacia grabbed King’s hand. “I haven’t tamed anything, they’re not wild beasts and they’re here because they choose to be. When you don’t live in the land of reclusive wankers, you get to make friends with different kinds of people. Normal humans, elves, dwarfs, things I don’t know the name of and a ton of others, the simulacra are no different. They’re just from a different time and a bit different to communicate with, that’s all.” She explained and clung on to the simulacra. “Besides, I like it. No floppy or squishy organs anywhere, and it’s exciting to not know where they are at all times. Live for a while with no other necromancers flooding your senses with their powers and you’ll realize just how much gross nonsense there is going on in just a couple of bodies. Make that a whole building full of dozens of bags of meat of every possible size and shape, and you’ll have so much sloshing, bulging, throbbing and wobbling going on that you either learn a way to tune it out at night or go insane.”
“But I like the floppy and squishy parts… You can tell a lot about a person’s health by how much the squishy parts squish and how well the floppy parts flop.” The inquisitor frowned.
“Hold up! I thought this was something she could just sort of flip on and off at will?” Emilia interrupted the conversation, suddenly worried about what her friend had managed to witness through the walls of the inn.
“It’s a sense like any other.” Iris said, all too happy to get to explain something about necromancer physiology. “Technically speaking, it’s always there, but if your mind is occupied by something else, it’s the first one to go numb. In the same way deep thoughts can basically make you blind and deaf until someone screams at you, the slightest interruption, like being in a rush, can just completely block your ability to passively use necromancy. The less disciplined you are, the worse it is. Funnily enough, some necromancers, namely our Empress, know how to exploit this and lay in wait until they can approach unnoticed. The frequency of which she would just appear behind you was downright creepy. When we were just lazing around instead of working for a bit, we used to have shifts so that someone was always tracking her to avoid getting caught.” She smiled but managed to ruin her own mood by reminiscing about the collapsing inquisition.
“Anna… Exactly how much have you been spying on us back at the inn?” The priestess demanded to know.
Anastacia fell completely quiet and stared off into the woods, pretending not to hear the question.
“Anna?” The priestess asked again and raised her tone a bit while Gilbert chuckled at the back of the group.
“No… not at all.” The young adventurer told one of the least believable lies ever heard. “I just press my ear against King’s chest and listen to the hum until it all goes away.”
Emilia turned to the laughing old adventurer behind her and screamed voicelessly over the realization. Gilbert, of course, had figured that this might be the case only a few days after bringing Anastacia to Valor and didn’t let it bother him in the slightest. He thought that some level of invasion of privacy was the norm for all necromancers, and was amused that the priestess hadn’t managed to connect the dots. Even more so, he was amazed at how clueless the necromancer had managed to stay over the months.
In varying states of regret and dismay, the group dragged themselves along the old road through The Garden of the Ancients. Much like before, the forest was peaceful and allowed them easy passage, though shadowed from direct sunlight, which made tracking time impossible. The warmer air somehow trapped under the treetops and the lack of wind made the journey a rather pleasant one as well. In the favorable conditions, it was easy for them to stay in schedule and make it all the way to the circular clearing where Anastacia had met the great wolf guarding the forest, or at least the spirit that was left of him.
They laid out their gear with the intention to camp out at the clearing for the night and began preparing for a hearty meal for a change, no longer having to ration the food they carried. As usual, the simulacra were sent to find enough firewood for the night while Gilbert and Anastacia started building the campfire and Emilia, with Iris keenly observing on the side, beginning to prepare the ingredients. The priestess laid out five bowls and began dividing nuts and jerky they had plenty of into each one.
“Why the extra bowls when there’s only three of you? Do the simulacra need to eat too?” Iris asked and pointed at the two bowls that didn’t belong to the set bough from Valor and were, in fact, taken from the inn they had stayed in as a sort of a silent protest against how the innkeeper treated necromancers.
“One is for you and the other one is for Kipouros.” Emilia said and tossed in some dried fruits.
“I’m fine, you don’t need to-“ The inquisitor tied to say to not cause trouble for the adventurers who were already tolerating her company. She herself didn’t have much in the way of supplies, but there were still some edible roots she had collected, enough to survive with at least.
“You are now a member of The Church of Sylvia, and this is merely Our Lady acting through me to see her followers taken care of.” Emilia interrupted her without bothering to hear the rest. “And as your high priestess, I’m ordering you to eat.”
“O… okay then, but I don’t eat meat. Just give that to someone else.” Iris accepted the food.
Emilia swiftly tossed the Jerky from Iris’ bowl into the other one that didn’t belong to the adventurers and poured the nuts and fruits from it into Iris’. She then handed out the bowls to everyone and took out the ingredients for the main course.
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Iris looked at bowl of dry meat on the ground. “Won’t this ‘Kipouros’ mind that they only got jerky? You didn’t need to give the rest to me.” She worried.
“He’s a wolf, so I seriously doubt they’ll complain about more meat.” The priestess smirked and handed the extra bowl to Anastacia, suggesting she should take it to the guardian of the forest. “Why don’t you two go and greet him while I prepare the rest?”
Anastacia wasn’t subtle about her disappointment over having to bring iris along, but she did want to meet Kipouros again. They headed over to the seat by the edge of the clearing and the adventurer sprinkled the dried meat across the mossy roots before sitting down. Iris didn’t exactly know what was going on, but didn’t dare the say anything to disturb whatever it was.
“And so returns the child of death, with another one in tow. A promise of return kept expertly, and a hearty thank you from my side to the fiery one for such offerings.” The gruff voice of The First Wolf echoed from within the large tree before the necromancers. “But with the newly acquired scent of dust as ancient as time, you carry a foul smell I can not quite place.”
Whilst the inquisitor remained stunned over the discovery of a talking tree, Anastacia greeted it. “Good to see you too, Kipouros.” She said happily and started gnawing on her own snacks. “We had to tussle with a dipshit of unreal proportions and I think that might be what you’re smelling.”
“It burns the nose like fumes from acid, infects the mind with apathy and reeks of eternal stillness.” The wolf commented.
“That’s Eminence alright. He’s dead now, so no need to worry about that.” The adventurer sighed, getting chills from just mentioning the sage, as if calling him by name would somehow resurrect him from the dead.
“Once more, the children of death distinguish themselves as the true protectors of the realm.” Kipouros chuckled. “But who might your friend be? By scent she is familiar, but did not stop to greet this old wolf before.”
Anastacia waited for Iris to say something, but the inquisitor was still occupied with trying to get a grasp of what was happening in front of her. After a bit of stuttering, the adventurer rolled her eyes and introduced her instead. “This is Iris, a necromancer, some kind of a healer and a massive weirdo. Things haven’t really been going her way as of late, so we picked her up for the time being and now I’m supposed to be teaching her something.”
Kipouros ruminated on the introduction for a while, perhaps intentionally giving the inquisitor the time she needed to recover from her stupor – for a wolf he was very considerate.
“Why are we talking to a tree? Why is the tree talking back?” Iris finally uttered to her fellow necromancer.
The adventurer shrugged. “These things happen. As a general rule, it’s good to talk to things around you every now and then, just in case they become sentient – they might just not be able to move or speak so talking to them might ease their minds.” She advised her student. “But in this case, we’re talking to the great wolf Kipouros, a loyal servant of Emperor Alabaster. The tree just happened to grow on top of him and the two became one overtime.”
“That Alabaster?” The inquisitor asked after hearing a familiar name.
“You know of my master? Perhaps you serve the throne of Mournvalley as well? Anastacia I can see to be of a spirit too free to be bound in servitude, but you are not cut from cloth suited for aimless wandering. I can smell the desire for purpose, a task you hope you can fulfill. Yet necromancers rarely choose to busy themselves with the bidding of lesser beings, so might we be colleagues?” Kipouros cheerily turned his attention to Iris.
Suddenly the inquisitor could feel Anastacia’s oppressive necromantic grasp tighten around her, as if to quietly tell her to choose her words carefully or risk being silenced. Yet the adventurer showed no hints about what to say, and in fact, a normal person wouldn’t even have been able to tell she was doing anything other than nibbling on her snacks. The fact that she was being coerced in such a manner made Iris certain that she was supposed to lie, and it didn’t take her long to realize that if Anastacia had met this being before and he still thought Alabaster was alive, the adventurer must have omitted the fact that the ancient ruler had been dead for several millennia.
Not being a great liar, Iris decided to mince words instead. “Y… yes, I do indeed serve the ruler of Mournvalley.” She admitted and felt the pressure on her ease.
“Marvelous! Do send him my regards. Tell him that the forest still stands as it should and that I await his return.” The Great Wolf eagerly requested.
Iris simply smiled back, unable to vocally promise something she knew she wouldn’t be able to do. Though the adventurer’s demeanor didn’t change, the inquisitor was able for sense the tenseness in her, the same one she felt after hiding the truth from the loyal beast.
The three continued to converse for a good while, all the way until their supper was ready. They delivered the wolf his portion and took their time eating around the campfire. Unsurprisingly both Anastacia and Emilia were still exhausted from their adventure and the first ones to begin fading for the night. While the necromancer was out almost immediately as soon as she finished eating, the priestess hung on for a while to see her newest devotee situated for the night.
While Emilia went through Anastacia’s hastily packed gear to find the bedroll she hadn’t even taken out, Iris stared at her fellow necromancer, peacefully sleeping in the unquestionably uncomfortable embrace of both her simulacra.
“Is this… like a weird thing thing? It sure seems like one.” She asked and pointed at the somewhat scandalous sleeping arrangement.
The priestess tiredly glanced at the scene and sighed. “Scholars greater than us have wasted their lives pondering the same. No one knows what their deal is anymore, least of all us. She’s always been like that with King, there’s some level of goblin marriage between the two but I don’t know what they think about it. Leggy is a new development and I don’t quite have a reading on her yet, but she did stick with Anastacia and kept her out of harm’s way when we were in the fortress, so who knows what’s going on with them now.”
“This is not the dynamic our intel on her mentions…” Iris muttered mostly to herself.
“You might as well throw away what intel you have of her, most of it probably isn’t true and none of it is helpful.” Gilbert commented. “Why do you even have intel on her? Just leave her be already.”
“As much as I personally believe she’s capable of just never thinking about us again and not a real threat, she possesses highly classified information and is the sole person who could simply saunter into our country and destroy it all. I don’t believe she would do that, but the others have their own ideas of how things are.” The inquisitor explained, clearly a bit ashamed of how things were. “Not to mention that after her own rampage through the castle and our subsequent work ‘removing’ the old nobility, her own noble origins put her technically as the next in line for the throne – if the old ways were to be observed. Before her escape, she was also somewhat of a public figure as The Anchor, so there is a sizeable portion of our population that would take her word over ours… She’s the perfect storm of national threats – all conveniently wrapped up in a compact package that has plenty of reasons to hate us. Even if she doesn’t realize it, she could be used against us. So, you have to agree that we should at least have a rough idea of her whereabouts and the political connections she has.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” The old adventurer immediately said while lighting his pipe. “Whenever you return to Mournvalley, you’re going to burn whatever folder you might have on her, alright?”
Iris looked at Emilia for support to her reasoning, but the exhausted priestess handed her Anastacia’s bedroll and backed up Gilbert instead. “He’s right, Anna is ours to look after now, and only the guild’s problem to deal with.” She said and yawned before huddling under her pure white cloak and immediately dozing off.
The subject was dropped there, and the remaining pair of travelers only exchanged a few more words over the fire before laying down and falling asleep.
Anastacia suddenly woke up to a moderate surge in necromantic power nearby, not large enough to be immediately alarming, but noticeable. She could still see stars between the treetops far above and both Gilbert and Emilia were sound asleep by the fire that was being kept alive by King.
However, Iris’ borrowed bedroll was empty, and looking in the direction of the power surge revealed the inquisitor’s silhouette a little ways down the path.
Correctly translating the surge as an invitation, the adventurer clumsily stood up from her lumpy resting place and headed away from the fire to see what Iris had to say that was so important.
“I’m sorry for waking you at… whatever time this is, but my head is slowly clearing and there was a concern I had to speak with you about – in private.” The inquisitor said.
Anastacia glanced at the campsite and figured that they were still within earshot. Instead of going further down the road, she led the other necromancer into the forest for a couple of hundred meters. They stopped by a small pond with clear water in it and sat down to discuss the matter.
“I take it that this is about Emilia?” Anastacia guessed. She had a decent idea of what the concern may have been but hadn’t had the chance to bring it up herself.
“Yes…” Iris nodded and took a deep breath. “Does the priestess know of her own ‘condition’?”
“I wouldn’t count on it. She hasn’t said anything and I’ve been keeping an eye on her, but so far it hasn’t caused any effects that I could see.” The adventurer said.
Iris scratched her head and pondered for a while. “As far as I can remember, things were completely normal before you went into the fortress… So, it developed over the time you were there.”
“We were separated for days and I couldn’t feel anything abnormal about her before that either.” Shrugged Anastacia.
“I didn’t want to stick my nose into this, but I had to at least ask you.” The inquisitor sighed. “How are you going to handle it.”
Anastacia stared at the smooth surface of the water for a moment and had a think. “I’m not really sure who to talk to about this… Probably either her or Rosie… Could just leave it be if it really causes no issues, it’s not like I know how to do anything about it.”
“Well, whatever you decide, do tell me so I don’t accidentally say anything.” Iris said and stood up to return to the campsite. She had been awake the entire time so far and was starting to daze from the lack of sleep. “Sorry to wake you up like this.”
Anastacia didn’t feel like leaving quite yet and stayed put to watch the dark forest and the pond before her. “It’s fine, can’t blame you for getting concerned over others.” She muttered as the inquisitor left. Alone with her thoughts, she remained perfectly still and allowed the nearby wildlife cautiously approach her so that she could see them.