The sound of rock shattering echoed throughout the colossal forest before a cacophonic sound of the earth shifting rocked the air as Fey Golem's massive arm slammed into the soil where the hoplite stood before, digging a large crater into the forest path. Iris kicked the mossy boulder which acted as the golem's ankle as hard as she could, causing the stone to crack slightly where her foot has hit, leaving flat shards of stone to come loose and fall on the ground. The golem turned its bulky body around trying to smash the tiny undead fighting against it. Iris quickly sprinted between the golem's legs finding it remarkably easy to exploit the construct's lumbering movements to her advantage as she danced between its legs causing the golem to have to constantly turn around.
*Boom*
Iris quickly jumped away from underneath the golem as an explosion rocked its massive body shortly before the many stones forming its body started to fall off, reducing the fey to a loose pile of mossy stones. Iris looked at her hand while opening and closing her hand, seeing her regeneration repairing the bruised left behind. She was testing how strong she was but the results were short of what she had expected.
"Something happened?" Kia asked as Iris pulled out her gloves from a satchel and put them back on her hands.
"I don't really feel that much stronger," The elf said as she turned to face the undead mage. "I feel like you got way more powerful." She remarked at the mage's evident increase in power without being exhausted as she would usually be.
"That's because you are not specialised," Kia commented. "My points are almost fully invested in Intelligence and Wisdom while your status is much more evenly spread out."
"I never knew people can specialise their status." Iris said. Her previous class blocked her from ever leveling and she never had a chance to understand how leveling works beyond the basics.
"Your status is dependent on your classes and race. Since I didn't know who I would turn into risen I made it into a generalist and for us undead, our race is also our primary class so you are stuck with this distribution of points." Kia explained while looking apologetic.
"Don't be sorry about that, someone here has to compensate for your weaknesses~"
"Hey, I don't have those!" The doll-like girl stated looking far too much like a peacock while puffing up her chest.
"You don't?" Iris reached her hand out toward the girl's neck and tickled her. "I think that might be a lie." The elf let go of the giggling undead. "Did you use a lot of mana?" She stepped back and returned to the task at hand.
"Not that much, I can still explore." Kia said, excited by the unknown hidden deep in the civilized dungeon.
Under towering trees, Iris sat on top of a large boulder with knees pressed to her body as she lazily watched the pale girl pace around an overgrown ruin in front of her. The girl's head was looking at an empty book which she was slowly filling with archaic letters and symbols Iris never saw before. Kia would only take her eyes off the book to look up at the area around her for reference.
In the centre of the ruin, there was a fountain with clear water still flowing through its dilapidated structure, hovering slightly above the fountain was the dungeon core encased in a bronze orb wrapped around with half-transparent sea-green chains. Through small gaps between the bronze segments, the dungeon's bright green light would flicker angrily at the necromancer standing beside it.
Iris hopped off her perching spot and walked toward the necromancer through the knee-high grass in which lifeless remains of defending dark elves and dryads lay. She avoided stepping onto the stone-tiled floor as she walked passed the charred bodies of the reanimated elves Kia had made to follow her. "Kia!" She shouted but the necromancer inside didn't even flinch from her shout. In an attempt to gain the undead inside attention, Iris flicked the air in front of her causing the previously invisible barrier to flare with a green light around the ruin. The barrier seemed to only react to them and Kia's minions with nothing else Iris had experimentally thrown inside being stopped.
The girl turned around with a face of confusion before realising what happened and after seeing the tall undead waiting for her. Her mouth moved but no sound reached Iris's ears.
"I think I finished," Kia stepped out from the stone circle with the book under her arm. Around the girl, the forest green barrier tried to shove her back in but the thin layer of pale blue energy enveloping the undead mage reacted with the barrier causing bright sparks to shoot out into the air before disappearing as she stepped out.
"Did you find anything inside?"
"Yes, it was rather eye-opening. There are a couple of spells which I didn't think about but they are rather non-optimized. Like there is an imprison spell with five hierodules of weakness attached which obviously doesn't stack because imprison already has weakness bound to it and that horrible spell is repeated fifty times! There is also a control spell and..." Kia showed the risen her book. The book or rather a grimoire had a black cover with metal reinforcements around its spine. In the centre of the black leather tome, a large draconic eye stared at its surroundings with a spasmodic gaze, never stopping to look at something for more than a second. "... eh, there is nothing of interest there besides the spells." Kia explained after seeing Iris's baffled face.
"Maybe the treasure chests are scattered around," The elf remarked on the lack of loot given by the dungeon even after defeating the last room. "Or maybe not. There is something odd about this dungeon, most likely because its had been civilised and under regular attack." She pondered aloud.
"Tired." The undead mage sighed loudly offering no comment to the elf before leaning on her companion.
"That barrier was draining my mana quickly."
"I would imagine soo. Kia, how do you write without a quill?" The elf asked as she waited for the snow-white girl to catch her non-existent breath.
"Like this." Kia straightened her body before opening the grimoire on the last page, Iris noticed that the pages of the grimoire were unnaturally thick compared to normal paper used in books. The petite mage touched the page with her pointing finger and began to write. As she dragged her finger across the blank page, it left an almost perfectly black trail behind it and as more letters formed, Iris began to smell something burning. After Kia had finished writing "Example" on the last page she unexpectedly clicked her fingers.
"What did you just do?" Iris asked as she noticed the page glistening slightly in the light.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"I covered the page with a thin layer of glass to prevent words from smudging over time or staining the other pages," Kia explained while looking extremely proud. "The glass won't crack since it's just solidified bits of mostly pure mana." She said after seeing the hoplite's doubtful look.
"Soo, you are magically burning paper and then covering up each page with a layer of pure mana to be able to write?"
"Basically." Kia casually shrugged her shoulders at the ridiculous-sounding method.
"Ludicrous," Iris shook her head from side to side before speaking again. "I think it's time to go back."
"Are we not destroying the core?"
"We can't destroy the core since it's civilised and I think Umbria would have been annoyed at me that the core was destroyed." The elf felt weird leaving the core untouched as she turned around.
The girl looked unconvinced but she quietly walked alongside the elf to the entrance. The forest was eerily quiet as they walked back on the same path they had entered, wanting to leave as fast as possible.
After roughly two bells of walking, they had arrived in the cavern with the pool of healing water drained completely leaving only a somewhat wet cavity where the life spring once was.
The two quickly scaled the decaying ladder, emerging through the fog in the empty building from which they emerged into Firmusa flooded by the darkness of the early moonless night and torch light of frequent patrols.
"Iris," Kia said under her white cloak as they entered the mansion's premises through the garden's gate. "Can you follow me?"
"What are you planning?" Iris distrusted the mage's tone of voice.
"Nothing." The girl quickly said before walking toward the side door.
"Kia, at least tell me a word related to what are you going to do."
"Hmmm... camping." The cloaked mage said after a moment of thinking.
Iris followed Kia as she walked past their room and toward Umbria's office. The girl knocked on the vampire's door which was followed by silence.
"Maybe she is not here?" Iris suggested.
"I thought I sensed h-"
"Master?" Umbria's voice suddenly came from behind them. "How can I be of service?" Their host said while wearing a dress dyed with her house's colours, behind the bloodsucker two men and a woman stood while sheepishly looking at the floor. Kia leaned to the side to get a glimpse of the humans but the noble blocked her sight, purposely mirroring the girl's lean. "I think Master, that these young can wait until they are worthy enough to see even a sliver of your form. Wouldn't you three agree?" Umbria said while wearing a cordial smile. "I love how quiet juvenile members of our kin are while their bodies adapt. It is a shame they eventually regain that ability to pester me with questions." She walked passed her Master and Iris and held the door for them with the three juvenile vampires staying still
As soon as Umbria closed the door behind them she walked up to her desk and fell down on the large chair while pulling a bottle of wine from her inventory.
"I hope I can relax a bit, Merciful Master." The Overtyrant's perfect posture slumped tiredly in her large chair as she poured herself a glass of deeply crimson wine. "Why was Master knocking on the door? Do I need to help with something?"
Iris curiously watched the necromancer waiting for a solution to her puzzle. "I decided that Iris and I will leave the city."
"For how long, Master?" Umbria's tired face instantly disappeared as her body straightened back as she narrowed her predatory eyes.
"Ehhh..." The girl hesitated with answering the question before turning to Iris causing Umbria's eyes to follow her Master. "...I don't know."
The powerful and old vampire's face couldn't decide between anger and grief as she silently stared at the undead mage. An uneasy stillness sets between the Overtyrant and the ancient undead with Iris stepping into a better fighting position beside Kia.
"Hello?" With an unusually confused voice, Kia broke the silence as she waved her hand in front of the petrified vampire.
As if the girl's word was a spell Umbria's red lips started to tremble. With great effort, she stood up and walked up to the sited girl before kneeling. In a depressing sight, the powerful noble rested her head in Kia's lap and began to cry, her entire body trembling from emotions ravaging her immortal body. Not knowing what to do Kia sat still while looking down at the crying vampire.
"W-whyyy?!" A singular word escaped from Umbria's wails as she wept into Kia's lap. "D-did I did something to displease you?!
"No, you didn't." The girl began to stroke the long white hair while refusing to look down at the devastated undead. "I just have to..." A long pause followed Kia's words, so long in fact that Iris, who didn't want to intervene began to worry about her.
"I understand now Master," Umbria looked up at the necromancer, her face bore a visage of sudden enlightenment. "I can't hoard you all to myself, there are other loyal creations still on their long and painful vigil and I shouldn't have assumed you played favourites with your creations." Her sudden calm voice filled the room expertly hiding most of her sorrow. The girl looked down at the kneeling vampire and hugged her.
"Here." Kia pulled a loaf of bread they bought shortly after arriving in Firmusa. The loaf quickly filled the room with the smell of freshly baked bread as she offered it to the vampire.
"Mortal food would be wasted on me, Master." Umbria tried to decline but Kia insisted, pushing the bread closer to Umbria's mouth like if she was a small child. "As you wish." She hesitantly held the loaf in her hands before nibbling on its crust while staring at the short undead. "What?" Her eyes widened as she chew on the piece of bread in her mouth. "I-I don't know what did I do to deserve this?"
Instead of answering Kia leaned onto the risen behind her, clearly exhausted from using too much mana in one day. Iris felt something from the girl through their connection, she couldn't put the feeling into words but the necromancer seemed to feel guilty or sad about something.
"I shall always saviour this gift." Umbria whipped her nonexistent tears. She quickly left the room without telling a word leaving the two alone.
"Are you not mad at me?" Kia asked Iris as soon as the door closed.
"I would preferred you telling me before you announced it but I sort of expected we would leave eventually." The elf responded.
The bloodsucker appeared again with a dark silver signet ring, which she offered to Kia, who furrowed her eyebrows as she touched the ring, causing the strange feeling to further but for a different reason. Iris didn't spot what was carved into the ring before it disappeared into the mage's inventory.
"That's is for you, Harbinger." Umbria presented a scroll of paper to the risen. "And remember about the gleit I gave you."
The risen noted Umbria's words as she unrolled the scroll, inside she saw a beautifully made map that was different from maps she saw previously, this map was also much less ornate than what Havenfall used with a larger emphasis on human settlements rather than demi-human and elven raid camps. She wasn't sure if she should even accept the map seeing how detailed maps were considered as national treasures.
"Don't be shy, Harbinger," She said before turning to face Kia. "I will lead you to the city walls." Umbria said, acting more like a humble servant than a noble.
They walked through the dark alleys of Firmusa, the Overtyrant leading the two walked unusually slowly but non of the two adventurers complained at their snail's like pace. When they reached the western gates Umbria hugged Kia before letting her go as her golden eyes met Iris's eyes.
"I had to, Harbinger." Umbria said as she waved the two their goodbyes. The elf sensed more curious undead watched them from the darkness.
"You can have that much. Until next time." Iris waved back, her words causing multiple gasps from the skulking undead and a cold hand to suddenly tighten her grip as she and Kia turn to leave.
Iris could spot Umbria standing at the gates to the very end until the forest blocked her sight. She didn't know where they were headed but that made her slightly excited about tomorrow.
"Kia, what's wrong?" The elf suddenly asked, feeling that the girl didn't want to talk where Umbria could overhear them.
"Why did you tell her we will be back?" The girl frowned at the elf.
"Because you can't avoid an entire kingdom forever." Iris motioned the girl to elaborate on why the ancient looked unhappy about her answer.
"Because I lied." The cloaked undead responded while turning her face away in shame.
"Lied about what?"
"I lied about going to find the other undead." The tired girl answered.
"Then why did you not explain your true reason for leaving?"
"Because... Because I didn't want to make the annoying lady sadder but I don't like the idea of finding others because I will feel the same thing I..." The girl shuddered in disgust as she spoke. "I like Umbria but not like you but also I think she causes me to become not me and I hateherforitandand-"
"Slow down." Iris stopped the troubled girl whose began to speed up, seemingly trying to off load all her thoughts at once.
"Can we stop? I think I am too tired." Kia leaned heavily on the elf as her legs gave up from under her.
"Of course." The risen said as she caught the nervous girl and carried her off the road to make a camp, finding Kia fast asleep when she stopped. She contemplated if she should carry the girl through the night or try to set up camp with the few things she had on her person. They were not that far from Firmusa and she fully expected to see a shadowy crow perched on her head if they stayed for the night. "I know how hard voicing your thoughts is while not having anyone to talk to for so long." The risen whispered to the sleeping mage's ear as she quietly walked west.
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POV Change
"Mistress, you seem extremely pleased." I hear Marleen say as I turn around.
"Of course I am Marleen, you two heard the Harbinger?" I say, my body pulsating from the raw excitement coursing through my body.
"Naturally." Karol and Marleen say in unison.
"Then you know what that means? Master will revisit us someday and we have to prepare for her arrival. I will burn from shame if she sees my city in such a state when she arrived," I raise my fist into the air. "We will make our Great Benevolent Master proud when she comes back! We have lots of work to do before us!"
The sheer thought brought me a feeling that I haven't felt since I began my service, no not even then I felt something resembling this. I felt an industrial inferno raging inside my body which not even Aspect of Water could extinguish and I put this inferno to use!