Over the Demi-Human Territory, the sun slowly moved across the celestial firmament casting its light onto the green landscape as flat and vast as the sea itself. Winter wind swept through the steppe, the tall grass rippling in the wind's chilling breeze as it galloped south like a messenger of the coming season. Eventually the sun reached its peak purging the land of shadow for a short precious moment before slowly plunging down below the horizon. It painting the green plain in fiery orange light before surrendering the land completely to darkness, to monsters which crawled out of their dens and began to hunt.
Dominating the nightly firmament above Niuran with its silver light, Leral or simply the Moon eventually emerged from amongst the dark clouds in full glory, revealing its scarred body to all. Its cold immortal light had troubled many who would dare to question it. Many revered this creature of the night as a divine, ever-present, perpetual and endless existence which comforted those who travelled in the dark. Yet, in hushed tones, people spoke of a bet between the gods. A bet which would prove which of them was the most powerful. The bet didn't resolve the godly quarrel but it had adorned the heaven a long time ago with a mountain ripped from the Niuran alongside the rich mithril veins at its roots.
Regardless of the Moon's origin, its silvery light shone down an impossibly deep hole and on the shoulders of two undead attempting to climb out of it.
Iris's finger felt the edge of the stone in the dark before putting her weight on it as her lavender eyes pierced the darkness with a small squint engraved into her face. Before she had even stopped a pale blue light illuminated her stony face from below, accompanied by Kia's hushed voice repeating the same words she had been saying for over a day. "Alter Stone" the word spoken in cyclopean echoed inside her head even as Kia fell silent once more, before their dance repeated itself. As the girl tugged her arm backwards the earth shook before reforming to create more steps for the risen to walk on. In between casting spells, the girl rested her head on the elf's chest in some kind of stupor, her quiet whispers would then reach Iris, complaining about the concentration of mana around her which from the sound of her moans wasn't much.
Unlike Iris, who could work all day long without showing a single sign of exhaustion, Kia had two things working against her. First, the elf realised that her Kia worked almost like clockwork since leaving the Forbidden Continent, a bell after the sun went down the girl would begin to wind down before falling asleep a bell or two later. Iris saw her dear Sleepyicu manage to stay awake for more than a day when dungeon-crawling previously but that's where the second thing came into play. The petite monster never managed to staved off her fatigue after depleting large portions of her mana supply. The elf had seen the mage simply drop unconscious after casting too many spells in a short amount of time and today Kia had casted more spells than she had ever seen in her life even compared to the hail of spells Alicia threw at dungeon bosses.
This climb started after the sun went down and the two demis went to sleep curled together in each other arms for warmth, Kia had specially slanted the platform inward they so the two would not accidentally fall out in their sleep. After doing that, rather than joining the two beast women and falling asleep between Iris's warm body and Nakatei's fluffy tail, the mage whispered that they should work for a little bit more. Seeing the eager industrial spark inside her large glowing eyes the elf couldn't refuse even if she wanted to.
Iris stopped and looked down at Kia who gripped her clothes with ever weakening grip as sleep tightened its grip on her. Instead of finishing her lean and reaching for the next place to grip onto the elf leaned back her body and reached for the previous set of steps wanting to return to the last stop. As soon as the elf's body moved in the wrong way Kia came back to undeath.
"No!" The mage unglued her face from the brown leather of Iris's jacket and stared at the elf. With one swift gesture, the path behind them disappeared, stranding the two undead on a single set of steps.
"Kia?"
"We are so close." The tired girl began to rub her face against Iris, begging her to listen or trying to shake off her exhaustion. Iris looked up, she hadn't done that for a very long and she heard something in her neck snap as she did so. She quickly looked back down again and saw that she had mentally dozed off somewhere along their path as they had left the demi-humans far under them without her realising that only three hundred meters divided them from reaching the surface. "Alter Stone." Kia said lazily unable to lift her head again as the path downward opened once more alongside another step for Iris to step onto and bring them closer to freedom.
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The smell of grass entered Iris's nostrils, so much time spent underground that her sense of smell readjusted to work better in the stuffed, dusty tunnels causing the smell of grass to become so vivid that the undead paused for a moment before claiming her freedom.
"Kia?" Iris lightly slapped the mage who barely stayed awake.
"Mmmm?" Kia opened one eyes as she let go of the elf.
"Stay here, I'm going to get the others. Stay awake until then." Iris quickly said before pushing the mage away from the edge, tucking her in the grass before beginning to swiftly descend, leaving the mage alone in the tall grass.
"Wake up!" Iris shouted over the wind trying to wake up the demi-humans. Her eyes were drawn toward the top where she left her creator alone on the surface. Not wanting to tempt faith further the elf decided to not be gentle.
"Auch!" Nakatei jerked as she received a kick in the butt quickly followed by another aimed at Shiro.
"!?" The white nekos' body stirred with power as she kicked herself off the wall in her sleep before somehow managing to stand up faster than the undead could register.
"It's me!" Iris quickly shouted.
"What happened? Wait did Kia...!" Shiro's crimson eyes searched the little wait station and noticed that neither Nakatei nor did her tail got violated while she slept.
"Calm down Kia is fine, she is waiting at the top."
"Top?"
"Yes, we reached the top about a bell ago. Shiro you coming with me I don't want to leave her alone up there for so long." The elf snapped at the nekos before motioning her to grab her.
"You're eager for my touch~" Shiro teased but didn't waste time as she quickly ensured her ward wasn't asleep and knew what was happening before grabbing the undead.
It took another bell for Iris to climb all the way back up without any stops and the moon which she could see as she spiralled around the chasm's walls indicated that there were plenty of bells left in the night.
The tall risen helped Shiro to climb over the edge even if she didn't need her help before pulling herself over the edge too. The two women were still on their knees when they heard something growl from the grass in front of them. Behind Kia who had fallen asleep while kneeling on the ground, the grass rustled before they saw oily black skin move between the blades of grass and parting them apart. A circular maw drooling with saliva appeared from the grass as the Nightmaw the size of a horse pounced at the necromancer.
"Kia!" Iris couldn't tell if was it she or Shiro who screamed the girl's name but blue and golden light appeared in the silvery twilight.
"Mana Shockwave!" Kia's melodic voice caused a pulse of white energy to explode from her left hand.
Iris jumped left as the horse-sized predator smashed its back into the edge of the chasm leaving a deep gash in the soft soil before disappearing as even the elf's keen eyes couldn't make out the Nightmaw's silhouette on the pitch-black background.
"That was close." Shiro said as stood up and scanned the grass for more predators lurking close by.
"Indeed." Iris's grim voice caused the half-conscious girl to begin to shuffle closer to the edge causing the cat woman to quickly snatch her up and motion the elf to go.
The night was almost gone as the purplish-orange light slowly and sheepishly began to paint the undersides of clouds when Iris emerged from the giant hole with Nakatei hanging off her neck for her dear life.
"I doubled my strength." The kitsune said sounding equally traumatised and in pain before she had to be put down by Iris on a patch of grass near Shiro with her arms very sluggishly losing the shape they had held while climbing up.
"Kia, why are you not asleep?" Iris looked at the girl who looked worse than she had last seen her before turning toward the only person who might have known.
"Ibis? Ibis?" Kia began to chirp fearfully, her eyes shut close as she remained submissively in the place where the elf had ordered her to wait.
"I don't know, I tried to tell her to go to sleep but she was saying you promised her something." Shiro explained after the elf glanced at her.
"I did?" The risen stopped for a second trying to recall every word she said to Kia. She slowly and carefully sat down on her knees in front of Kia and leaned over so that only she and her kitten would hear her words. "Did you work so hard for a kiss?" The Damestar raven smiled wickedly as watched the other raven lean forward.
"U...pro...mised..." A half-coherent murmur came from the kitten as she began to fall asleep in the presence of the elf and her warmth.
Before her sleepy kitten could fully fall asleep Iris sealed her lips with hers. The risen passionately began to make right on her promise as the girl's sleeping body began to slowly slump over before the elf slowly separated her lips from Kia's as the exhausted mage finally fell asleep, still kneeling in the place her creation had pointed to.
"I love you, my hopelessly adorably Kiayicu." The once elf kissed the ancient on her forehead as she ran her slender fingers through Kia's black hair.
The girl reciprocated the elf's show of affection by lunging forward, slamming her head against Iris's ribs with such force it caused the air in her lungs to leave in an instant. The petite angel who had made the undead hoplite started to wonder if she had used magic to propel herself forward, started to purr while she began to snuggled against the elf's warm body, climbing on top of Iris and curling into a ball.
"Did something happen?" Shiro asked, she hadn't seen anything through the tall grass separating the two but she grew concerned hearing the hoplite gasp suddenly.
"No, nothing unusual," Iris said while staring at the snow maiden who rested her head on her neck. She took off her jacket and covered the sleeping ancient who looked so peaceful while she clung to her. "Nothing at all," Her voice seemed to cause Kia to smile in her sleep before beginning to purr like a spoiled house cat as her creation began to slowly trace the anchor mark bounding them together with her finger. "Nothing at all..."