The room was silent, save for the faint clicks of the mechanism inside the brass sphere, clicking in uneven rhythm as the geared teeth struggled back and forward on a machined shaft without an outside help. Dust motes floated lazily in the pale-blue shafts of moonlight flooding into the room as a clay golem continued its never-ending task of cleaning the front room.
A figure sat slumped in an armchair near the centre of the room, cloaked in the kind of stillness that suggested abandonment or death.
Kia's head drooped forward, chin resting on her palm, motionless. Her left arm, pale and delicate, lay lifeless on the metallic curio, fingers slightly curled as if caught in a final moment of tension. The only hint of life was the faint rise and fall of their chest, so slow and subtle it could be mistaken for a trick of the light which perhaps it was or an illusion casted previously for some unknown purpose only an ancient mind could comprehend.
A sudden knock at the door broke the stillness a sharp, deliberate sound that echoed through the room. The figure did not move at first. A second knock followed insistent and louder this time. The stillness of the figure became heavy, and expectant, like the moment before a storm as mana raged outward painting an elaborate web of shadow under her skin. A flash of purple light pierced the dark fabric as it brought back the snow-like hue to her skin.
A hand twitched. Barely. Then again, a subtle flex of the fingers sent a cascade of dust drifting from the chair’s armrest. The head lifted, the movement slow and deliberate, as though the weight of the world pressed against it. Matted eyes, heavy-lidded and distant, flickered open and a colourful glow illuminated wherever her gaze landed. For a moment, she seemed to struggle to focus, gazing into the dim room with a mix of confusion and awareness.
The knock came again and a familiar warm voice called out from beyond it. The figure straightened, joints creaking in protest. A low, guttural grumble escaped her lips breaking the eerie silence. Muscles stiff from disuse stretched and shifted as the ancient reached up to brush strands of hair from her face.
Hearing the voice again and the sound of a key being slotted in, she turned her head towards the door, her movements gaining purpose and life, a faint spark of something stirring showed as an involuntary smile emerged despite the mage's slowness and attempts to make a frown.
"Iris." The petite undead said as the door creaked open, her voice hoarse from the dry coldness of the room. The mage rose unsteadily from the chair, swaying for a moment before finding her balance. Each step toward the door was deliberate, as though she were relearning the act of walking.
"Kia," The elf jogged to the sickly-looking necromancer. "The entire city is swarming with guards and most roads are blocked off. I was stopped half a dozen times and questioned." The elf knelt as she explained to the oddly wobbly undead.
Instead of listening, the shorter raven pushed her face against the elf. Rubbing and nudging her small nose against the elf, absorbed in testing the slight resistance she offered. This continued for a while, the girl making sure to anchor what she was seeing to be true. Her Anchor smelled bad but this wasn't something which bothered the mage who had long accepted the melee undead to smell of gore and filth occasionally.
"Oh, you noticed something?" Spoke the hoplite as the necromancer's eyes opened wide and peered over her shoulder as she smelled her shoulder.
The tone which Iris spoke to her, she didn't like it. If something had gone this close to her and she didn't notice, Kia was ready to put Iris on a surgery table. Even the ground would do as her anchor clearly suffered from some kind of malfunction and needed immediate maintenance.
The colourful shine of her duel-coloured eyes sharpened as she stared at Iris who seized the mage's head in her hands and pecked her on the forehead.
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"I don't need you to cut me open," Kia must have made a face as the elf grinned, she quickly raised her defences making sure to not offer Iris any advantage from the link they shared but scanning her system her favourite hadn't peered into her mind. "I have brought you a present I think you will like. He easily got passed your defenses and learned of my undead nature."
The ancient's eyes followed the elf as she stood up, she could feel two pairs of eyes watching her but she didn't want to look, an alien feeling winning her over. The elf furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she looked back at the mage.
"Umm-" A squeamish voice finally caused Kia to look in its direction, grinning when she was sure Iris couldn't see her expression. The being in front of her resembled lizards the workers who had finished detailing Necropolis use as pets. Yet, this pet had grown to her size and stood on two legs.
The dragonoid seemed incapable of speech as its eyes were locked onto the ancient and Kia began to question why Iris would bring this creature to her. She cared not that its ancestry came from the Great Enemy as the bearded cyclop would call the creature, but she found herself angry at the lizard without a reason, his mana signature making the mana around her fingertips tingle with anticipation.
"Kia, your aura." A warm voice suddenly calmed the storm inside her before the new feeling pricked her core. Iris called it jealousy didn't she?
"Whoa." The hunched creature watched with awe as the ancient retracted her aura, sealing her presence away completely. "Why can't you do that with her." He pointed at Iris.
"You wouldn't understand." Kia replied coldly.
Maybe if her level wasn't fixed to Iris's level she would have found a way to hide both of their auras completely away but at the moment most of her mana expenditure was spent keeping the enchantments she put on before creating Iris became her Anchor up. Even in combat, she didn't dispel them simply lowering their effectiveness to nearly zero, a level at which she could easily tank the price by absorbing mana around her.
"I think I would." The hunched mortal replied stepping into the room.
Inspecting the lizard, Kia learned that scalrith was a chronomancer and most interestingly of all he was classified similarly to her by the system. His level fixed and regulated by another being. It was odd to see a non-monster being treated by the system like a summon yet exciting at the same time. Something new.
"I don't like that look."
"But I do." The elf replied to scalrith as her saviour grinned widely.
A leather-bound book appeared from nothingness, a yellowish eye appearing on its spine. Kia began to ask questions and the room began to be periodically illuminated by spells. The skill of Draco, as Iris introduced him, didn't impress Kia at all, although comparing his level and understanding of how magic worked to humans made him seem somewhat competent, like a child playing with building blocks without understanding the architecture they could create.
Yet, it was refreshing to talk to someone who cared little about the ritual and focused more on the fundamentals of magic and manipulation of it.
"Kia," Her creation who had stood all this time around the two, watching Draco carefully finally moved and tapped her on the shoulder. "Could you fill a bath for me? I don't want to stink up the place any more."
Kia stood up, she was a bit sorry that Iris's soul was fire-aligned making learning water spells extremely difficult for a melee build like her. Still, a fire was an adequate affinity to have for combat, second only to undead mana of course.
A stream of water appeared from an infinite bubble suspended in mid-air and Kia could hear Iris ordering the golem which had followed them.
"How old are you?" Draco asked as Kia came back. His language was an odd bastardisation of the draconic she remembered being taught, on an off chance a dragon saw truth and sought to rest in her halls.
"Rude." She felt a chip appear on her pride, this was not a way to speak to her around other undead.
"You sound exactly like Balgriff the Old. I wondered if the name sounded familiar to you." His eyes focused on her with an alien expression she took as anticipation at her response.
"Is he also a lizard? If so, I never seen one in my domain."
"Ohh." Kia watched as Draco raised his hand to his long face, his eyes drifting aimlessly in a haze.
"Are you going to show me how you quickly saw through my defences?"
"I smelled her."
"Ridiculous." The ancient muttered angrily. She had developed the spell at the height of her power, there was no way primitive sense like smell could overcome her ward, especially if it was a mere creature doing it.
"As cycles go by it isn't like we only get nerfed," Draco began to explain, his voice hissed through gritted teeth. "Balgriff explained to my order that as mana dissipates through more and more beings, our senses to detect it become sharper and sharper. However, for Elders like yourself, your limitless mana creates a barrier to your own presence requiring significantly more stimulus for your senses to detect anything. Your spell must have worked perfectly and I'm guessing you were testing it yourself.
Your age has shifted the balance, making it harder for you to discern through the noise as they once did." He explained, his last words struggling to escape his lips.