”With every inch of my being, I more than regret that it has come to this. If only you could have seen the unfortunate necessity of our mission, if only there was another way… but to accept what is coming without a fight would be the greater crime against this world. To grasp on to the faintest glimmer of hope we have, that in time there is an answer to be found – a way to repair of finish this flawed, draining creation. Until then each moment, spark of light, flicker of flame and spur of movement must be preserved.” Tekhelet lamented as one of her reflections mournfully traced the violet words hastily scribbled into the black book. “Was there truly nothing I could have done differently? Was my plot doomed from the start? Was there a way I could have convinced you before you lost your way? Never again will my mind know peace…”
Barely listening to the wails, Anastacia could tell her grasp onto the nearby material was rapidly weakening, though the problem wasn’t with her powers. A sudden loss of necromantic powers would have been obvious, as would a competing force outdoing her, but it simply felt like the material itself was fading away from her.
“What did you do?!” The necromancer demanded to know.
Tekhelet looked up from the book as trails of deep violet tears started flowing from the eyeholes of her metal mask. “Tore you away from the pages of fate. It will take a moment for the world to rearrange itself in your absence, but soon there will be no trace of you to be found by those who are still on the pages. Fear not, you will still exist to us others abandoned by it, but the world and passage of time will forget you. Make good use of these last moments of being part of the world, feel the wind on your skin, make your final footprints in the snow.”
“What…” Anastacia uttered and pressed her boot into the freshly fallen snow by her, feeling the resistance be much higher than before, as if she was having trouble affecting the world around her. Her initial instinct was to start stomping out a message into the snow, but there was no chance it would be seen before being hidden by snowfall.
“Do not despair. Try to find solace in the fact you’ll be rid of your physical needs as time no longer takes a toll on your body. No more eating, drinking or sleeping. No more pains and aches, no more exhaustion.” Tekhelet advised, no doubt out of experience. “Bid farewells to your mortal woes and acquaintances, for in a moment more they will forget you as well, as will the rest of the fatebound world.”
There was no reason to suspect the sect member’s words, as Anastacia could very well feel her ties to the world severing themselves. Light no longer stopped when it collided with her body, her weight no longer compressed the snow below, her breaths failed to move the air around her. She cast no shadow and the frigid air no longer felt cool on her face. Searching frantically through her pockets and satchels before the process completed, she had to leave some kind of a mark, there must have been something she could have left behind. Until suddenly, her hand stopped on pouch dangling from her belt with a leather twine. Not having the time to undo the knot, she snapped the twine and opened the pouch to reveal a handful of white crystals. Stolen from the depths of a machine fortress, the crystals would record any voice in their presence once activated, and maybe – just maybe, carry over a message someone could find and begin to unravel the problem. Anastacia had some hope that one of her friends would be vigilant enough to notice her absence and would begin to search for answers. If not the particularly resourceful mortals she knew, surely one of the ageless machines or mightier beings she knew would notice it. Regardless, it seemed like there was little more she could do than to hope and make sure Tekhelet knew she had made a mistake.
She gritted her teeth, sang out a quiet tone to activate the crystals and watched them light up. “Look, death couldn’t take me when it tried. Do you really think this roundabout bullshittery is going to work any better? Sooner or later, someone will notice what’s up and figure it out – and until then, I’ll be sure to make every moment of your existence worse than whatever fate you idiots claim to be working against.” She threatened her captor and scattered the crystals onto the snow, and much to her relief, saw them sink into it.
“This is the burden I elected to bear, Brume, do your worst and I will weather it.” Tekhelet responded, clearly having expected some type of a violent retaliation
“Tekky, Tekky, Tekky… It’s like you don’t realize what you’ve done. You’ve made it so that I can’t tire, don’t need to sleep, eat or drink – and you’re stuck out here in the snow with me.” Anastacia chuckled and pointed at the patch of the snow the bandaged being had stood before being engulfed by a mass of bone and dragged belowground. She couldn’t be absolutely sure of it, but it had certainly sounded like Tekhelet needed the being to travel back to wherever she came from.
Tekhelet replied with a miserable laugh of its own, seemingly confirming the necromancer’s suspicions. “Threatening me with pain? Without your crown, you can not hurt me in a way that matters.”
“Pain? Oh, not at all! Not the physical sort anyway.” Anastacia snickered. “We’ll start with a thorough exploration of a few subjects near and dear to my heart, such as which piece of kitchenware is objectively the most attractive – where I will describe each and every one of them in a wholly inappropriate and frankly disturbingly steamy detail. As the second act I’ve planned to sing my rendition of the popular song ‘ten thousand bottles of beer on the wall’, for which I have prepared a choreography for – there will be no halftimes. Then, assuming someone hasn’t come and get me by then, we’ll have us a proper girl talk! You have no idea of the pile of exotic insecurities I have to offer! Then I suppose I finally have the time to name every single one of my goblins thanks to you…”
“You make mockery of this? The faith you have in your acquaintances is inspiring, if not ill placed. The trap you stand in is convoluted beyond mortal measure, no mere band of scrappy mercenaries or ‘adventurers’ can unravel it. No, and the cost of its reversal is even greater than the one I paid in its creation.” Tekhelet sighed as the reflections slowly meandered closer to the metal surfaces revealing them and sat down atop the snow to wait. “My absence will eventually become apparent to the others and end to my entrapment will come, I will gladly allow you to accompany us in this harmless form of yours.”
Since the snow no longer felt cold to her, Anastacia followed suit and sat down by the indent in the snowbank her earlier tumble had made. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we? I’m acquainted with far worse things than some adventurers, things that I think will see through this ploy… And it’s not like you’ve solved this whole white necromancer problem either. Even if I’m stuck like this forever, the other one will no doubt tear you a new one sooner or later.”
The reflection Anastacia had chosen as the partner in her conversation gazed up at the sky, violet tears still dripping from her mask. “So you know of that as well…” She whispered.
“I’ve been informed that for every Ivory, there is an Alabaster. You seem to be suggesting that I myself belong closer to the violet end of the bullshit-made-up spectrum we work with, and knowing what I know of the ancient bastard himself – he resides far in the other end. Meaning that not only is there a white one left for you to deal with, they’re the one you should be afraid of. Now, you said killing me would be a bad idea, so that applies to them as well, which means you either don’t know where they are – or, much more amusingly, do know but can’t do anything about it.” The necromancer almost gleefully theorized on the sect’s troubles based on what she had learned from the spriggans and the sect themselves.
Tekhelet remained silent, which in itself confirmed much.
Iris determinately marched the last few meters of the snowy road before reaching the crossroads she was meant to face her opponent in. Her wings slowly flapped as she absentmindedly strengthened her control over them and surveyed the area for anything unusual through them. The warming and calming effect on her soul, provided by the fiery deity accompanying her preparing for what was coming, was starkly contrasted by the chilling dread caused not by her enemy, but the crown hidden under her robes. For some reason, facing Tekhelet barely crossed her mind compared to the very real possibility of having to don the accursed thing on her head, and even keeping it so close to her body put her on edge.
For a moment, she stopped to stare across the field at the faint blue lights of the simulacra still keeping company to the goblins in their castle. Ideally, she would want to keep them out of harms way, but knowing that King was within hearing distance wasn’t entirely unwelcome, and the other two could no doubt at least lead the tribe to a safer spot if things got out of hand. She still couldn’t tell there was anything strange going on in the starlit snowscape, and no amount of opening and repositioning her wings for a better coverage seemed to change that. Material below the icy ground was plentiful, and though decayed, it would suffice for her purposes.
“Think this might be a case for the heavies.” She muttered to herself and searched for the freshest remains she could find. Noticing one sufficient example, her left wing twitched and separated its pieces from one another to almost double in size. It reached over the snow and as if using a set of invisible strings, plucked a mostly intact human skeleton from the ground before returning to its usual orientation on the necromancer’s back – though still somewhat extended.
The skeleton slowly rearranged its bones as they had been in life. Still wearing rusted pieces of armor carrying a faded emblem of a nation or a noble house that had at some point staged a failed attempt to attack on Valor, and in its skeletal hands, clasping a pair of swords it had never let go of. Courteously bowing to its master, it began waiting for the necromancers will to give it further purpose.
“Aureolin the Sentinel, the earthy taste of your stalwart blood still lingers in my mind. Act as I know you would.” Iris instructed the skeleton. Of course, talking to one’s thralls was more or less equivalent to talking to a sock puppet on one’s own hand, and she was frequently ridiculed for it, but Iris had her own methods and stuck to them no matter what the others said.
Next, her right wing sprang to action, seeking a skeleton of its own and yanking it from the soil. This one, with half of its skull missing, stood with only a faded red tabard draped over a rusted mail that crumbled away the moment it moved. Its arms dangled limply and its hunched over posture was a far cry from the first one’s solid stance. It too glared at its master with its remaining eye socket.
“Warmaster Vermillion, bitter and lost to rage. No leash holds you now.” The inquisitor sighed much less enthusiastically.
The two thralls turned to face the field their master stared over and as they moved, each one of their movements was reflected as a tiny adjustment in Iris’ wings – or perhaps the other way around. Iris herself took one more deep breath as the snow around her feet once more began to melt from the heat signifying the goddess of joy’s presence or attention.
“Call the name of the wretch!” A fiery voice in her head commanded, shedding the last remnants of the guise that it was there simply to aid.
Taking only a moment to think, Iris could feel a burning touch around her neck, trying to force out the name. “Tekhelet! Show yourself!” The inquisitor screamed at the seemingly empty field.
In less than a blink of an eye, the full visage of Tekhelet was revealed. The outermost tall shards of metal sticking out of the snow appearing only a few meters in front of the two skeletons. Iris immediately focused on the only bit of movement she could see: the reflection of a wraith-like form expectantly standing between her thralls, though still invisible to direct view. From its reflection, Iris could only see its back as Tekhelet already had turned her attention to the necromancer.
“A veritable mess of puppets and puppeteers! Fascinating, but we have no business with one another, none of us. Begone and suffer no consequence.” Tekhelet addressed both the necromancer and deity before turning around and facing the reflective surface and allowing Iris to meet her empty gaze.
“You misunderstand, I am here as a consequence for you to suffer.” Iris responded, feeling unexpectedly unbothered by the direct confrontation. “As an inquisitor of Mournvalley, it is my duty to stop whatever this is. You and your sect are not allowed so much as a foothold in this world.”
Tekhelet let out an amused chuckle. “An inquisitor? You? My! The empire has fallen through the bottom of the barrel it seems. Our exile was forced by inquisitors controlling vast armies of thralls, you seem taxed to bring forth two, even with your rotten god pulling the strings. I am more inclined to take this as an insult than a threat! No red courses through your feeble intent either, what is it that you plan on achieving here?”
Though the sect member seemed to be at least moderately interested in a chat with the current iteration of the inquisition they had feared for centuries, Iris had done what little talking she intended to do and spread her wings to their full length and the two skeletons she had raised became animated. The ground itself shook as dozens of rusted and rotten weapons tore themselves free from the soil they had laid in ever since their carriers had met their ends. Moved around by the severed hands of the dead the weapons belonged to, they filled the air around and above the area, interestingly enough following the movements of the first skeleton Iris had taken control of rather than the necromancer herself. Swords, sabers, lances, spears, daggers, axes, maces, halberds and everything in between readied themselves to be swung at anything nearby. Before Tekhelet had the time to turn and face the inquisitor again, her mockery was silenced by a swarm of weapons mercilessly stabbing and hacking at her general location. Any blade or edge that met its invisible mark conjured up a gush of dark violet blood that immediately corroded it to uselessness – but arms were not in short supply in the grave underground, and more kept popping up from the ice and snow, more than recovering the numbers lost in turning the sect member into a disgusting wet stain of blood, cloth and metal on the snow. Meanwhile, the other skeleton had not simply stood idly by, but instead dashed at the nearest shard of metal and swiped its arm at it, causing a torrent of broken bones sprout up from the ground around it, and wrapping themselves around the shard like a tree growing against a stone building. It took no more than a moment before the force of the bones bent and finally cracked it into small chunks of metal that crumbled from their grasp, only leaving behind a twisted snag-like formation of crushed bones.
Under no illusion that things would be as simple as that, and certainly not thinking she could actually kill Tekhelet, Iris kept watch on the area, and soon came to the correct conclusion about her opponent’s existence as a group of separate reflections that quickly began moving in the images reflected on the surfaces of the other metal shards. Naturally, as she understood this, so did her thralls and the carnage they were causing was unleashed on the wider area. Aureolin’s weapons hacking away at anything they could hit and Vermillion’s uncontrolled rage shredding apart anything in the skeleton’s reach, be it metal or Tekhelet. Seeing the area slowly be drenched in foul ichor, the necromancer let out a chuckle and caught herself grinning at the sight, even wishing for more of a resistance.
“I admit to my foolhardy assumption before.” Tekhelet suddenly spoke up once more, seemingly unbothered by the ongoing slaughter of her reflections. “A curious form of necromancy indeed, but this is an exercise in futility still, and you know it no less than I do. The crude imitation of red in your arsenal is of no use. I do hope that was not the full extent of your plan.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As soon as Iris got a rough sense of the direction the voice came from, the swarm of weapons swept across the area and stained it in violet as well. That didn’t change the fact that Tekhelet only spoke the truth however. There seemed to be no end in sight for the battle, and Iris had even seen a few of the slain reflections reform back into their original shape given enough time. Breaking the metal shards didn’t seem to have the desired effect either, as the sect member’s visage could still be seen moving on the surface of the larger pieces – though it appeared to slightly limit the area she could occupy. She had hoped that a necromancer in possession of the crown challenging Tekhelet would have been enough for the scribes and Holly to do whatever they needed to do, but that didn’t seem to be the case and nothing happened as moments passed.
“The crown, my champion, wear it!” Sylvia’s excited demand echoed in Iris’ head, further forcing her hand.
With a shaky hand, Iris pulled the crown out of her robes and took one more look at it. Despite its light construction and materials, it weighed more than lead and gold combined in her hands, and felt like it was seeping poison into her fingers even through her gloves, making them numb. Even with a literal god screaming in her head while fighting an immortal being of corruption, the idea of the piece so much as touching her head was revolting – it was as if both she and the crown itself knew it didn’t belong to her and that she had no business wearing it.
“Those guys better hurry with their stupid book…” She muttered and slowly lifted the crown over her head. Fighting against every bit of her sense of self-preservation, she placed the cursed crown of ivory on her messy dark locks.
Without so much as a moment of false relief, visions of horrors incomprehensible to a mere mind of a mortal and indescribable with languages that could even be spoken by one filled Iris’ field of vision, only growing more intense when she tried to shut and cover her eyes to escape them. The feeling of countless eyes aimed at her from thrones and dwellings above and below the mortal plane, all with untold intentions and expectations burning in their gazes as they judged the poor fool who had placed the crown on her head. Perhaps with a mind more present, something could have been learned from the terrible sights, but that was not at the top of the necromancer’s mind at the time, nor could anyone blame her for it. Her ears rang full of screams that barely reached them and whispers that thundered at deafening levels. Though happening at the same time and drowning her in noise, none of them overlapped or caused others to be less audible. Each distorted curse in an ancient language came through as clear as the other, each scream carrying an emotion Iris wasn’t sure she even possessed rang clear on top of them. Mutterings and utterances in modern languages or their recognizable predecessors offered an occasional word to cling on to, but even then, the sentences were meaningless to her. Every inch of her skin felt like it was burning and freezing at the same time, in incredible pain but also being soothed and numb. Obviously overwhelmed by the experience, Iris immediately attempted to take the crown off, but found her own hair, now metallic and red-hot, coiled around it to make sure it would not move.
From the outside, this only appeared as the necromancer standing still and staring blankly ahead as the wings on her back crumbled onto the ground around her and the rest of the material in her direct or indirect control followed suit. Soon, paralyzed by everything she was feeling, she fell on her side, uselessly attempting to cover her eyes and ears while screaming helplessly before even that stopped.
The considerable amount of carnage Iris had caused left Tekhelet unable to use the moment of weakness to her advantage, and the screaming caused the simulacra across the field to spring into action. Predictably, The One of Amora and Leggy prepared to corral the goblins away from whatever was going on, while King did not hesitate for a moment to pick up his shield and spear before rushing to aid the necromancer – against an enemy he did not see. Surprisingly, his heavy steps across the snow were quickly joined by a second pair of much lighter ones. Spurred awake from her slumber within the castle by the necromancer’s screams, Xamiliere quickly caught up to the knight and passed him before she herself even knew why she suddenly cared about the situation so much. The spriggan could tell something in the area was off, but couldn’t see past Tekhelet’s illusions unaided either.
Before the pair could make it to Iris, and despite – or rather because of her mind being distracted, the scattered bones above and belowground began to take form of a person much larger than an average human, almost twice as tall. Larger bones from horses and other beasts of war were used where possible, but some parts were simply replaced by clusters of smaller bones in a roughly appropriate shape. Any bits of metal armor dangling from the remains rapidly heated to a point they were welded onto the bones and whatever lighter materials had been attached to them burned away. As a finishing touch, the larger skeleton picked up a rusted metal shield from the upturned dirt and pressed it against the horse skull it had for a head with enough force to bend the metal around the bone and permanently cover the skull’s eye sockets as the intense heat grafted it on.
The skeleton glanced back at the trembling and screaming necromancer behind it. “I can only apologize, but the crown must stay on to loosen your grasp of your powers.” Sylvia’s not particularly apologetic voice echoed in Iris’ mind as a part of the nightmare cacophony she couldn’t shut out.
“There is no separating a tiger from its stripes, is there?” Tekhelet mocked the deity. “Honeyed words and platitudes, meager boons to grease the gears, but only ever selfishly striving for their own goals no matter the cost or pain it causes – the gods are truly the most despicable part of this world.”
The large skeleton suddenly lurched forwards, successfully grasping onto one of Tekhelet’s invisible reflections, which immediately burst into flames, visible even to King and Xamiliere. Not sated by the first, the goddess of joy caught a second one with little effort.
“You are not exempt of the workings of this world and beyond, god. Your efforts are just as fruitless as your little puppet’s.” Tekhelet chuckled as the second reflection burst into fire and crumbled to ash.
The skeleton watched the ash fall from its hand and turned its attention to the closest shard of metal that still stood. Calmly making its way over, it placed a finger on the metal and immediately began melting it like it was made of something even lesser than ice.
“Wretch! Caitiff! Ingrate! Baron of Iron, are you familiar with the name?” Sylvia inquired, with her voice now emanating from the molten metal.
Tekhelet took a moment to answer. “While not my own work, contacting the fiend is in our records. Unsuccessful, unfortunate for both his sake and ours...” She entertained the question.
“Upon this world I once walked, creating many horrific things in my wake. Fear in the hearts of mortals is a part of my lineage, the darkness was thought safe before my works. Until the least of my creations, the last of my children, in him I found a spec of good. Curiosity over malice, an inquisitive mind born from twisted places. To shield him I urged him to escape into the depths of this world until a better age comes, take no part in his siblings’ crimes… Yet now I found him dead, with a banner of violet draped across his assailants’ bodies…” Sylvia wept as the metal seeped into the snow and hissed loudly. “Now I find myself thinking, is there truly any other outcome for specs of good ushered from evil in this world? My youngest slaughtered, the unfit necromancer only alive through my intervention, the faint hope of Mournvalley’s new rule already buckling under the weight of this rotten world. From my seat above I see a great deal of joy, the brightest of which seems to only exist to be extinguished by the filth that lingers in this realm. I myself am a mere piece of a vile whole, my worst shed so that I would be befit of this position. Am I just as doomed no matter the course I take? And if so, it falls upon my shoulders to plot the course of my fall before the fates get their chance does it not – to make it a blow against the evil plaguing this creation, before I inevitably retake my part in it?”
For the goddess of joy, her words carried precious little of it, instead trickling with seething hatred and sorrow appropriate for a grieving parent. She watched as King and Xamiliere finally made their way over, with the spriggan simply dashing past her so much as a glance. King, on the other hand, was not about to ignore the giant skeleton that seemed to be conjuring molten metal from thin air. Even though he did make the connection that undead and the like generally were on the side of the necromancers, he still pointed the tip of his spear at the skeleton puppeteered by Sylvia, demanding an explanation at the very least.
“No different, will be the stories of these two little ones. From the depths of Aureun depravity, an engine of war cut itself loose. An uncaring agent of balance, uprooting itself from the natural order of things. Both for the same simple reason, their joy bound to a fragile mortal life – fleeting even by their measure. Time will come when their worlds will crumble, based on nothing but the whims of fate, just as mine has as they witness the futility of their rebellions – a brief flicker of joy, perhaps better left unfelt as it only deepens the darkness in the end…” Sylvia continued, snapped her fingers and revealed Tekhelet to both of them.
Ignoring the deity as well as Tekhelet, Xamiliere focused on what had stirred her awake in the first place: aiding the necromancer. Not knowing what was wrong at first, she tried to wake up Iris from what seemed like some kind of a waking nightmare she was experiencing. Helplessly shaking, curled up to a ball and covering her ears, the necromancer showed no signs of even being able to respond. When no amount of prodding or calling her name worked, Xamiliere noticed the crown on Iris head.
“You shouldn’t be wearing that… no one should.” The spriggan whispered and attempted to wrap her wooden fingers around the crown, only to have her arms suddenly ignite.
“Do not intervene, spirit.” Sylvia warned.
Suffering through the agony, Xamiliere grasped the crown again. “Fuck off! You divine shits can’t have this one either!” She hissed back at the god before letting go when no progress was made and the flames grew taller. “King! I need someone with less flammable hands!”
The simulacra hesitantly lowered his weapon and rushed to aid the necromancer as well. As he held on to the crown, the intense heat quickly made the metal and stone of his arms glow with a dim red hue, but the materials devised by the aureun in the depths of their fortresses using elements entirely unheard of anywhere aboveground, were not the type to go soft in such a meager flame. However, even if he was able to withstand the heat, the crown wouldn’t budge and too much force would only injure Iris.
Tekhelet had followed the situation from afar, knowing that the necromancer was out of her reach and that attacking the skeleton did her no good. However, she was not able to resist a bit of mockery. “Ponder fates as you will, god, it will do no good. You’ve no blade to raise against us, not through the necromancer, even less without. The time our path crosses with the gods will come, but only once we are prepared for it.”
“Fear… fear is the only edge sharp enough to cut through the malformed existence your vile band of reprobates lead. The fear of what is to come guides your every action, the fear of the inquisition the only force to oppose it – and the tool to sever the dregs of your souls from their eternal terror of the end… Suspiciously fitting for you to mistakenly accrue my wrath, as if to taunt me to fall. The pieces fit so well together, as if my duty as a god was only to fall.” Sylvia muttered mostly to herself with an undertone of a worrying chuckle in her voice. “Am I but a mere stone, lifted to the heavens for the sole purpose of being cast down upon these pests as punishment – for both them and I? Was this truly what I amount to as a god?”
A hint of worry appeared to Tekhelet’s voice, but she still continued to taunt the deity. “Has the change of planes addled your mind, little god? There is little sense in your inane mutterings. For your benefit, I can apologize in pretend for what befell on your offspring, but the choice was the baron’s. If that is the extent of your gripes with us, we have naught to talk of and your intermission should come to an end already. You have the answers to your inquiries and your fires may scald but they do not burn me, so there is no purpose to your presence here.”
“It is a fortune that I can not end your suffering here and now, as the warning would go unheard among you.” Sylvia laughed as the intense heat surrounding the skeleton magnified greatly. The ground around it began glowing red as everything that could had already burned away and the nearby shards of metal began melting just like the one by her, intensifying the goddess’ voice. “Know that fear is a weapon I once forged into the minds of mortals, and know that the time has come to sharpen it once more, to fulfill what seems to be my charge! AS A WHOLE I SHALL WALK THE MORTAL LANDS ONCE MORE AND HUNT DOWN ALL WHO BEAR YOUR ACCURSED CREST. THE MERCY OF DEATH WILL NOT BE GRANTED TO ANY, WITH GREAT HOOKS OF IRON AND ROPES OF YOUR OWN SKIN I WILL TETHER YOUR DESTROYED HUSKS ACROSS THE BURNING SKIES! FROM THERE YOU WILL FOREVER WATCH AS THE DECAY YOU FEAR SLOWLY TAKES THIS WORLD! FOREVER IN PAIN! FOREVER IN FEAR!”
Luckily, having foreseen the inferno, Xamiliere and King had moved Iris some distance down the road towards Valor, which was no doubt already sounding alarms about the sudden ball of fire in the horizon. Neither of them could really do anything but watch as Sylvia’s flames scorched a good portion of the structure Tekhelet resided in. The pair considered taking the necromancer all the way back to Valor, since they hadn’t been clued into the plan Iris had been trying to enact – and perhaps still was, considering she was wearing the crown. It may well have been only a matter of time before Holly finished her work and Brume would return to hopefully do something about the situation. As King lifted Iris on his shoulder and turned towards the city, he was surprised to see a single person rushing down the road towards them.
Leaving behind a trail of molten iron dripping from her gauntlets and burnt patches as footprints, the priestess of Sylvia had no doubt been alerted to the deity’s doings by their shared connection, which seemed to have affected her even though she had not been involved directly. Her eyes had become black with nothing but rings of fire for irises. The usually spotless and glimmering armor had become blackened by fire and grown barbed wires that tied each piece firmly to its place. Her hissing breath passed through sharp fangs and came out as nothing but smoke. The pure white cloth of her uniform was charred and its edges glimmered with orange cinders.
“Iris! What’s going on here?!” The priestess worried as she reached King and Xamiliere. She looked at the storm of fire behind them. “What is that?!”
“YOU!” Xamiliere exclaimed and grabbed the charred collar of Emilia’s uniform. “Curb you god, now!”
“What?...” Emilia uttered. She wasn’t stupid enough to be unable to connect the dots between everything, but was unwilling to believe the obvious conclusion.
“Your shitty god is forcing Iris to keep this accursed crown on, to keep her occupied while she puppeteers her powers. Now go stop her!” The spriggan demanded.
The claim was definitely within the deity’s capabilities, but she had no idea why Sylvia would do such a thing. She could see the badly burned bark of Xamiliere’s arms and the metal wires that held the crown down on Iris’ head, as well as the clear agony the necromancer was in, but it didn’t make sense to her why Sylvia would harm people she considered her friends – or why she would involve herself at all. What she did know, however, was that something had been awry for a long while now, ever since she and Gilbert had visited an underground keep of some sort for reasons she couldn’t quite remember. The usually joyous songs in her head had become brooding, almost menacing at times, and the deity’s actions had become even more mysterious to her – even when she was supposed to be Sylvia’s chosen one and the one closest to her. All of it made her realize something: the problem wasn’t that she couldn’t believe Sylvia would hurt her friends, it was that she didn’t want to believe that. Deep within herself she knew herself unaware of the deity’s motivations or how far she would go to achieve her unknown goals.
“H… how do I do that?” The priestess asked helplessly, suddenly entirely without confidence or guidance.
Before Xamiliere could say anything, they were interrupted by the first utterance Iris let out ever since she had put the crown on. “Coquelicot… help… please…” She let out a pitiful cry that could barely be heard over the roaring fire and Sylvia’s song of wrath.
Suddenly a few parts of Iris’ wings, left behind on the road and only barely far away to avoid being turned to ash, floated up and were joined by an assortment of bones from a wide area where they had been untouched by the commotion so far. They rapidly formed into yet another skeleton, this time with the usual human proportions, though with three times the usual number of arms – the unmistakable form of the Empress of Mournvalley. Without hesitation or further commands, it swiped but one of its arms across the blaze before it, immediately scattering the bones puppeteered by Sylvia with almost insulting ease, causing them to be incinerated in the last few seconds of the inferno before it too faded away. With its work done, the skeleton glanced towards the necromancer and crumbled into a pile of bones where it had stood.
With the deity’s presence in the realm erased, Emilia’s appearance reverted to the usual in an instant, and more importantly, the cursed crown of Ivory tumbled onto the ground and released Iris from its grasp. Though she didn’t immediately wake up, her suffering had clearly been eased and she appeared to simply be tuckered out from the experience. The complete silence felt far from comforting even compared to the roaring storm of fire though, as they were now without a necromancer and without a god, mostly unaware of the situation they were in and the danger Tekhelet posed.
The silence was broken not by a sound, but a feeling of something shifting in the world. None of them could explain what exactly it was, but looking at each other they all knew they had shared the experience. It wasn’t a bad of awkward feeling at all though, if anything, it felt like something was suddenly right in the world again. It was followed by a freezing gust of wind that felt out of place after the intense heat, but also like it had just brought something with it. All three of them instinctively turned around to look in the direction Tekhelet was in, only to be met with a cheery grin on a familiar face they all immediately recognized.
“I tried to come up with something cool to say for my heroic return for when this happened, but got distracted. So… I heard someone brought a crown for me?” Anastacia of Valor smirked, once again part of the world and quite done messing around.