Within the empire’s capital city of Sanctus Terra lies a broken-hearted young magician. This isn’t the first time this has happened to her though, forcing the young lady’s fragile heart to toughen up without her knowledge.
“Seriously?! This is the 5th time this year alone. To think that he’d cheat on me with that elven ranger.” the young lady angrily muttered to herself, drink in hand.
It is midday but none of that mattered. In her head, she just wanted to forget about the pain, even if only for a moment.
“Boss! Another round!” yelled the young lady at the owner of the tavern.
“HA!HA!HA! Is it that time again, Mavis?” asked the owner in a joking manner.
Mavis glared at him as he finished his sentence but the owner was unfazed.
“Well, just make sure to not bother the other customers. I don’t want a repeat of what happened last time, okay?” said the owner. As for the “thing” that happened last time, it pertains to events that happened only the previous month wherein Mavis, getting heart-broken yet again, was drinking herself to the bottom of the barrel. In her drunken stupor, she got agitated and started chanting magic towards the other patrons. She had only finished paying back the owner for the damages she caused at the time.
Midnight came and Mavis, completely drunk, decides that it’d be best if she just end it all. While the owner was tending to another customer, she snuck out the tavern and made her way to the edge of the city, hoping to encounter a monster who could help her with her grim desire.
She was extremely drunk though so making her way out the city, which is just directly south of the tavern, instead brings her to the city’s graveyard.
“Huh? Did the forest always looked this spooky?” Mavis asked herself perplexed.
She looked around the area and soon, even in her inebriated state, finds out that she is in a graveyard.
“Ah! What am I even doing here?” Still confused, she ponders what her purpose being there was.
As she wobbles around exploring the graveyard, Mavis took notice of the various tombstones in the area, especially this one beat-up tombstone that has the name “Lowell Necros” written on it.
Mavis knelt in front of the tombstone, running her hands along the unmaintained tombstone.
“Lowell Necros. It seems we are one and the same. Nobody cared about us at all.” Mavis muttered to herself, tears forming on her eyes, now confronted with reality.
“Perhaps we can do something for each other, Lowell.” said Mavis as she stood up and brought out her grimoire.
She chanted a short incantation that made the nearby inanimate shovel and spade start to move on their own and dig up the grave that Mavis stood on.
It didn’t take long for Mavis to hear a thud coming from below. She had found the coffin. As she pries it open with the tools she have, Mavis hear people speaking from a distance.
She stopped what she was doing at the moment to better hear the voices.
“Are you sure the magician’s in here?” asked one of the voices.
“Should be. This is the only place to visit in this part of the city.” said the other.
Mavis, morbidly curious as to who the voices belong to, tried to sneak a peek. What she saw were two men in similar armor. They’re guards patrolling the area. But wait! It seems they were looking for her but why?
As she is lost in her thoughts, still peaking out, one of the guards sees a giant, purple pointed hat and underneath are a couple of eyes staring directly at them.
“I found her!” the very same guard excitedly told his partner.
The guards made their way to the hole where the magician was still in. As they got closer, they pulled out their swords in case of retaliation.
“Mavis Grand! You are under arrest for dine and dashing and also for being under the suspicion of grave robbing. Come out with your hands in the air and your mouth closed shut.” declared one of the guards.
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“It’s over, magician! Don’t make this any harder for yourself.” said the other guard.
IT’S OVER! To think that boss would report me to the authorities when I just got my heart broken. And grave robbing? That wasn’t the case at all but I doubt these guards would listen. There’s no way out of this one… or is there?
Mavis took out her grimoire once more in search of a spell so powerful that it would solve all her problems in a flash. It was a spell that her master never taught her and forbid to even think about.
“Raise Undead!” Mavis yelled as she finished her incantation.
The adjacent graves’ undead residents start to wake from their slumber. A total of 5 skeletons have risen from the dead. Mavis peaked out of the hole once more to command her conjurations.
“Skeletons! Heed my command! Attack those poor saps.” Mavis screamed towards her minions.
The skeletons heeded their master’s wishes. They slowly advanced towards the two guards who didn’t seem all that impressed with their opponents.
The guards slashed through the skeletons with ease. It seems like they were but normal citizens when they were still walking the earth. The guards had a look of annoyance in their faces as they made their way closer to the magician who, at this point, only has her giant pointy hat poking through the hole.
“It’s okay! I still haven’t used my trump card”, she thought to herself.
The guards looked down at Mavis with discontent and annoyance in their eyes.
“Well, well, well. To think that such a sweet girl like you would turn out to be a necromancer.” said by one of the guards.
“Unfortunate. I had the hots for you too.” said the other guard.
“Wait, really?”asked the first guard, surprised.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t matter now. The law at Sanctus Terra states that practitioners of dark magic are to be executed on sight.” replied the other guard.
The second guard, the one who liked Mavis, went down the hole to join her. The hole is quite narrow with the guard standing on one side and Mavis, on her knees, at the other.
The guard, sword still in hand, assumed a stance with the intent to strike his foe in front of him. In this case, she’s a defenseless girl who doesn’t seem to be retaliating anymore.
“I have to use it now! I have to use my trump card before it’s too late.” Mavis considered anxiously.
“W-wait!” Mavis implored.
The guard stopped at the height of his attack but he doesn’t say anything. At least she got his attention.
“P-please don’t k-kill me. I’ll d-d-do anything.” Mavis begged the guard.
With this, Mavis’s trump card is now in effect. That’s right! Her trump card is BEGGING!
The guard, shocked with what he’d heard, finally brought down his sword to his hip.
“Anything?” murmured the guard who’s face twisted into a grim smile
“C’mon dude. Just kill her already. This place is giving me the creeps.” said the guard above who’s visibly antsy.
The words of his friend just went in his ear and out the other. He didn’t care about anything else.
“I guess I’ll take you up on that offer, Miss Mavis.” said the guard in a creepy manner.
As he descended to meet her, the coffin that they were standing on top of suddenly started shaking. It wasn’t due to their combined weight that the coffin is going to give but because of something else.
A loud scream echoed within the coffin, shocking everybody in the vicinity. The scream was indiscernible but everybody could tell it was no good.
Mavis quickly went out the hole while the guard that was with her unsheathed his sword once more but before he could do anything, the beat-up wooden cover of the coffin suddenly broke as skeletal hands sprung out and pulled him by the ankles into the coffin, never to be seen again.
“Nooooo!” yelled the remaining guard.
“What did you do, necromancer?” he followed up as he unsheathe his sword, ready to kill the young magician.
He grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up as he places his sword by her throat. Mavis, unable to breathe, flails her entire body as she gasps for air.
“It’s futile to resist, necromancer. It’s over.” declared the guard, wanting to avenge his fallen brother-in-arms.
As he pressed the blade of his sharp sword on her throat, blood started pouring out of the wound, eventually getting so wide that the wound had become fatal.
With the guard busy with his execution, he never noticed the creature sneaking up behind him. Before he could react, a sword had already plunged his chest, puncturing his heart, instantly killing him.
The now-dead guard drops Mavis who’s bleeding profusely from her throat. A decent sized skeleton is revealed as the guard’s body hit the ground. The undead looked just like the conjurations from earlier except for its eye sockets burning a blue flame and the distinct green jewel hanging from it’s neck.
The skeleton made it’s way to the magician who’s still trying her best to gasp for air. It went down on one knee and put it’s bony hand on Mavis’s cheek and then down to her neck.
Soon, the young and talented magician known as Mavis Grand was no more.
Usually, to help the recently deceased to pass to the afterlife, people would close their eyes to ensure peace on their next life. Despite being a morally good person during her time alive, Mavis was not granted this simple gesture.
The skeleton, with it’s master dead, went back to its grave seemingly to live out the rest of its undead “unlife” until it gets found and exorcised by a clergyman. That’s what the average person would think but unfortunately, this skeleton is very different from everything the world has ever witnessed.
The skeleton emerged out of its hole once more, now with a staff adorned with bones and a grimoire with a disturbing, screaming face for a book cover.
It stood in front of the deceased mage as it opened its grimoire. The green gem hanging on the skeleton’s neck glow a bright, green light. The staff clutched on its bony fingers as it gets ready to cast a spell of some kind.
“Mavis Grand. You have released me from my prison. Now it’s my turn to save you.” Lowell said and then after it starts to chant a spell. The bright, green light started to envelop Mavis as the surrounding area is wrecked by a violent gale.
Soon after, the spell is finished. The area around them is barely recognizable as most of the tombstones have uprooted. At the middle of the graveyard stands Lowell.
“Take my hand and be with me, Mavis!” said Lowell as he reaches his hand out to Mavis.
Mavis, now resurrected from the dead, took Lowell’s hand.
“I’ll be with you!”
“Good. And you needn’t worry. I will destroy those who oppose us.”
That night, the imperial city of Sanctus Terra, unbeknownst to them, have released a great evil the likes of which the empire has never seen in hundreds of years.