Gregor sat in the command tent reading from a pair of large tomes. The morning’s officer meeting was over and he was alone, having sent his assistant priests into the camp to gather whatever information they could about the low number of cursed. The soldiers had likely already noticed, and it was possible that the veterans may have thought of something that he had overlooked.
The books on the table in front of him contained more than seventy years of expedition reports, and he regretted not bringing more. They were copies, of course. No nation of the empire had ever gone seventy years without a failed expedition, and the books were too valuable to risk losing. For any one of these books, there were at least four duplicates in Orlis, and they would all be updated once the expedition returned.
There was a general pattern to the writing, if one took the time to notice it. Each new expedition leader always took the position seriously, and their first report usually covered multiple pages. As the years passed though, they would become more familiar with the role, and their entries would become shorter and shorter.
Expeditions were far from boring, but still repetitive, with each year being similar to the one before it. For one year, the entire entry had simply been, “Same as last year.” There was nothing written for the year after that. Like all lost expeditions, there had been no survivors, and no one left to write a report.
Gregor’s own entries had followed a similarly shrinking style. Up until this year. This year he had already filled in two pages, and it was only the third day. Now he poured over every word and cursed both himself and his predecessors for their lack of thoroughness.
First, the number of cursed had been surprisingly low, then they had found that homunculus girl, and this morning he had even been told that the carrion birds were acting strange. Commander Haylen had told him that Indigo had some kind of cohabitative relationship with the birds, but it was still unusual for one of them to be seen inside the camp. It had only been perched above the gate, but it was still out of the ordinary.
“Maybe Indigo has an idea. She’s been here long enough. Perhaps she’s noticed something that we haven’t. She’s certainly seen more of Peninsula than we have.”
He paused at the thought, and added the city’s name to his rapidly growing report. Indigo had been clever, figuring that one out. The city was indeed built on a peninsula, and now that he looked for it, he was surprised that he hadn’t realized it himself. Many of the buildings used the coastline as a logo, and even the arena had a fairly nautical theme to it.
Gregor decided to make sure to talk to her again later that day. In private, and away from Archmage Verdis. He didn’t want a repeat of their last meeting. He still had many questions for her, and he-
Knight-Paladin Damfeld stormed through the tent flaps and practically slammed a bottle onto the table between them. Then he sat down, put his elbows on the table, and cradled his head in his hands. He didn’t immediately speak, and Gregor looked over at the bottle. It was twice the size of a normal wine bottle, and the dark color of the liquid inside hinted that whatever it was was likely twice as strong as well.
“Give the damn girl a salvage permit Gregor,” Damfeld said, and he sounded tired. “Give her a damn salvage permit so I can get this damn expedition back under control.”
“Meyer…” They had known each other for years, and Gregor was one of the few people that Knight-Paladin Meyer Damfeld allowed to refer to himself so informally.
“If this bottle had come from anyone else, I would assume they were trying to bribe me. I take it you’re talking about Indigo? What’s wrong with the expedition, and why does it involve giving her salvage rights?”
“Just give her the damn permit, Gregor. I know you’ve got the expedition’s seal around here somewhere. If she doesn’t put her clothes back on soon, then I swear to The First, I’ll be throwing one or both of you off the arena walls.”
Gregor blinked slowly. He had known Meyer for a long time and had never seen him in such a state before. Knight-Paladin Damfeld was one of the highest ranking people in Orlis, and every paladin in the kingdom answered to the man. He was seen as a physical embodiment of law and justice, so what could have happened to make him sound like he was genuinely considering his previous threat? And what was that about Indigo’s clothes?
“Context, Meyer. What happened, and why does it involve salvage permits and clothes? Start from the beginning.”
While Meyer was organizing his thoughts and attempting to glare a hole through the table, Gregor walked to chest at the side of the tent and returned with a pair of cups. He opened the bottle and gave it a sniff before pouring out two small helpings. It was brandy.
“Calm down and have a drink. I’ll put the bottle under my own salvage permit.”
He knew Meyer wouldn’t take a sip unless he added that last part.
The Paladin pounded back the drink, and poured himself another before he began to talk again. Gregor sipped at his own slowly, listening carefully.
Meyer had just left the morning meeting when he had been approached by Indigo. She told him that she intended to return to her hideout for the day to gather her things, and look for other items she wanted to take with her when the expedition left.
Naturally, he had refused, and explained to her the illegality of trying to take anything from the necropolis. Her response had been to start stripping in the middle of the camp, stating that her clothes had come from the necropolis, and she didn’t want to break any laws by wearing them.
Once naked, she had begun pulling bottles of wine and liquor out of nowhere, and started leaving them around the arena in plain sight. Her explanation for that had been that she was simply getting rid of contraband.
Despite Meyer’s attempts to cloth her, she had managed to avoid him, claiming that she refused to take charity from the man who had forced her to strip in front of hundreds of people. She had likewise refused to touch the bottles again without first getting a salvage permit to make it legal.
Gregor had to take another drink at what he was hearing. Meyer was a stickler for rules and regulations, and followed the law to the letter. Against anyone else, this sort of twisted logic would have meant nothing, but against Knight-Paladin Damfeld, it was the perfect weapon. She was causing chaos in the name of following the law, and only further laws could stop her.
It didn’t mean the expedition was doomed, but that much alcohol floating around was bound to cause disciplinary problems, and it would be a nightmare for the officers to keep under control.
“Send her in to see me,” Gregor sighed. “I’ll talk some sense into her, and you do what you can about the alcohol. Hopefully we’ll be able to get most of it before the soldiers start drinking.”
* * * * *
Mayra was sitting on a stool outside of Haylen’s tent, and was utterly failing in her attempts to calm down the irate half-elf.
They had known each other for quite a while. With the amount of time they spent around her uncle, it didn’t take long for the two of them to meet. For a while, they had mostly been acquaintances, but this expedition had brought them a bit closer together.
This was Mayra’s first trip to the necropolis, and being both a mage and a noble limited the number of people she could interact with. Although Haylen had been on several expeditions, this was her first year as an officer, and there were few she could talk to without worrying about the chain of command. Both of them were rather free spirited people in occupations that required discipline, and last night’s dinner hadn’t been the first time they had talked over a meal while venting a bit of stress.
Now though, Haylen looked like she was going to strangle someone. A certain pale skinned, big eyed, and horned someone. Mayra was still laughing too hard to make any progress at improving the half-elf’s disposition. The sight of her taciturn uncle trying to throw his cloak over the scampering homunculus had been one of the funniest things she had ever seen. The men had been staring, the women cheering, and Mayra had wondered if she were still dreaming.
“I should probably avoid Uncle Meyer for a few days,” she thought. “Indigo probably chose him as a target because of last night’s conversation, and if he finds out about that… Better avoid him until we get back to Orlis just to be sure.”
Meyer Damfeld was not a cruel man, but his punishments could be quite unusual. Several years ago, when she had first started living with him, he had caught her sneaking out at night and had forced her to wear a complete set of plate armor for an entire week. She didn’t want to think of what he’d consider a fitting penalty for something like this.
Indigo had been in the command tent for some time now, and Haylen’s platoon was currently running around the camp trying to find all of the bottles that had been thrown about. Haylen hadn’t waited for the Knight-Paladin before giving that order. Even the big orc Corlo had joined in. Most of the soldiers were reluctant to give up the alcohol, and he had already broken up two fights.
Under normal circumstances, Mayra suspected that Haylen would have found all of this just as amusing as she did. Haylen considered Indigo to be her responsibility though, and thus thought it less than humorous.
When Indigo finally reemerged, fully clothed once more, she immediately approached them with a smile on her face. Haylen pounced, grabbed Indigo by the collar of her vest, and began to shake and berate the girl.
“What were you thinking?” she shouted. “Do you have any idea how utterly stupid that was?”
Indigo however, seemed unfazed, and replied as if they were having a perfectly normal conversation. “If stupid but works, then not stupid.”
“How?! In what way did any of that make sense?”
Indigo was still being manhandled, and Mayra pulled Haylen off of the girl so she could listen. No matter how bad the excuse was, she wanted to hear it.
“Get naked was for making point,” Indigo began, and went into a full account of why she had felt it necessary to act in the way she had.
Stripping had partially been to make the rest of it unignorable, but there was a genuine purpose to it. Indigo wanted the expedition leaders to understand just how much she would be forced to give up if they wouldn’t let her keep the things she had taken from the necropolis. By the letter of the law, she truly would have to enter the empire naked and destitute if they didn’t make an exception for her. The homunculus thought it was hypocritical for the expedition to say that they were helping her, while also taking away everything she owned.
The wine bottles hadn’t been part of the original plan, and had been a spur of the moment addition. “Sorry for that one,” Indigo said. “It probably a little too far.” Once again, Mayra had to hold Haylen back, which wasn’t easy since she was laughing again.
Once inside and talking to Father Gregor, things had gone slightly smoother. Indigo had shown him what she had in her storage, and just like with Haylen and herself, explained why the contents needed to be handled with caution. This time though, she added in a little bit of a threat.
“I tell him I could leave,” Indigo continued. She had told Father Gregor that if she wasn’t allowed to take her things into the empire, she would go somewhere else. If the empire didn’t want her and her secrets wandering around, she would find somewhere more accommodating. Once out of the necropolis, she could simply walk into the miasma and let it carry her off to parts unknown.
She wanted to go to Orlis when the expedition returned, but she made it very clear that she didn’t need to go with them either. She was willing to play the part of a muse and help lead others to rediscover the lost secrets, but she refused to be tied down and forced to spoon feed the Ancestor’s knowledge to anyone.
“And if he called your bluff?” Haylen asked.
“I not bluffing. I thankful you show me way out, but I not owe my life. I not mage guild pet, and I not empire’s pet either.”
Mayra and Haylen both winced at that. They were both proud Imperials, and the idea that Indigo wouldn’t feel the same way towards the people who found her hadn’t crossed their minds. They didn’t think that the girl owed them anything personally, but it still made them feel a little bit guilty.
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Father Gregor had been easily convinced of Indigo’s seriousness. She didn’t have anywhere to call home, so to her, getting lost in the mist wasn’t the life shattering event that it was for other people. And to someone that had survived two years in a necropolis, it wasn’t nearly as much of a danger.
Eventually he agreed that the empire would be better off for Indigo’s presence. He was probably thinking that they wouldn’t be able to keep her on a leash, but they could at least keep an eye on her. They lost nothing if she left, but could potentially gain quite a bit if she stayed.
“So,” Indigo went on. “Good news, bad news, fun news.” The good news was that Father Gregor had agreed to use his own salvage permit, and that Indigo could take whatever she wanted from the necropolis. The bad news was that he wouldn’t give her one for herself, and that it was a one time deal.
The “fun” news, made Mayra doubt that Indigo understood what the word meant. Father Gregor had agreed to reconsider giving Indigo salvage rights if she could bring him verifiable information on the deeper parts of the necropolis. They knew everything they needed about the edge of the city near the entrance, but knowing about the other parts could still be a great asset.
“It’s a smart choice. Her expertise on the necropolis makes her exactly the type of person they would want to give salvage rights to, and a down payment of good will could help assure them that she’s willing to be cooperative.”
Since Indigo wanted to go on her own little raid today, she had readily agreed to take a few people along and show them around so they could act as witnesses. Her fixed eye contact on a certain half-elven commander made it clear who she had in mind.
Haylen was annoyed at the short notice, but offered to gather her platoon anyway until Indigo shot her down.
“Home is too far. Platoon too many people. Cannot go fast. Cannot sneak. Cannot keep safe. I take small group. Four or five people.”
“I volunteer!” Mayra shouted. “You’ll need a mage, right? I may be able to understand or explain things that the others can’t.”
Mayra wasn’t about to pass up this kind of opportunity. Mages rarely got the chance to leave the camp. They had a reputation for grabbing whatever they could get their hands on, and so the expedition kept them on a tight leash. Mayra fully intended to live up that reputation. If she was lucky, the small golem Indigo had given her would be the least of what she managed to take back to the guild.
Haylen and Indigo both eyed her skeptically, and probably knew exactly what she was thinking, but didn’t argue.
“I suppose we’ll need Corlo as well,” Haylen said. “Of the people I can call on, he’s got the most experience. If anyone can tell Father Gregor what he wants to hear, it will be him.
Mayra had only briefly met the orc, but he was a paladin, and she would feel a lot safer knowing he was around.
From there, they broke up and agreed to meet at the front gate of the arena. While Haylen went to pass command of her platoon to one of her sergeants, Mayra ran back to her own tent to gather her things. She didn’t need much. Indigo was well supplied, and was planning on returning to camp the next morning. Mayra only needed her bedroll, a small dagger, and a pouch of the mana flower tea that the mages drank to help resist the necropolis’ drain on their mana.
She was the first to arrive at the gates, and was glad that the latest wave had ended while she had been in her tent. She had heard some of the soldiers complain about the times they had been stuck outside when the camp was defending itself against a horde of the cursed. To Mayra, being inside was just as bad. It made her feel trapped. She would have felt better if she had been helping to fight, but magical combat tended to use mana quickly, and so the mages only joined in when there was an emergency.
Mayra had been the only one of the mages to volunteer for the expedition, and only then because of her uncle. To mages, the expedition was a waste of their time. They didn’t disagree with the need to have mages go along, but none of them particularly wanted to be the ones that went. It kept them away from their studies, and they had to sit around the camp for a week straight while fighting off the effects of mana deprivation. The archmages even went so far as to draw straws to decide who would have to represent the guild that year.
Soon enough, Corlo arrived, fully kitted out in his armor and with a large pack that showed he was leaving nothing to chance. The large sword that he usually kept strapped to his back now hung at his waist so the pack wouldn’t impede his ability to draw it. His jaw was set with grim determination, but the twinkle in his red eyes still made him look like he was smiling.
They didn’t have to wait long for the others. Haylen was the next to show up. She had on her standard uniform, and carried a spear. Apparently deciding to travel light, her own pack was much smaller than Corlo’s.
Finally Indigo walked out from the tent rows, pulling a confused Kearse along behind her. Indigo had apparently not given him any time to prepare, and he only had his armor and spear.
“He’ll be fine. Probably. If he needs anything, he can get it from Indigo.”
Whatever her reason for bringing him, another spear couldn’t hurt. Most likely she had grabbed him in order to round out the perspectives the group would have on whatever she showed them.
“At least I hope that’s what she was thinking.”
She was nervous about going into the city with so few people, but their guide had survived here for years. If anyone could help them avoid the dangers of the necropolis, it was Indigo. And a chance like this was worth the risk. It was unheard of for someone without a salvage rights to go into a necropolis alone, and even they stayed close to the entrance. This was an opportunity that couldn’t be passed up.
Party assembled, they walked out the front gate, stepping over dead cursed, and staying out of the way of the soldiers dragging the bodies off to be burned. Mayra shuddered as some of the feasting crows turned to look at them, but they went back to eating as the group passed them by. When they reached the street, Indigo pulled out a folded map of the city and checked it before choosing a direction to travel.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?” Kearse asked.
“Home first. East side of city. Then grocery store, book store, and shopping mall. Uh… Shopping mall is big building. Many stores inside. Maybe can find book store in mall. We spend night at mall. Tomorrow, I give tour and show you things. Then back to camp.”
Haylen slowed as she listened to Indigo’s plans.
“Aren’t we going north? And how are we going to get to the opposite side of the city and back? It would take days to walk that far
“Yes. So we no walk.”
The destination Indigo had in mind was less than a block away. It was a squat building made of metal and glass, and one of the smallest buildings around. Outside of it were dozens of carriages of every variety.
“Why walk when can drive?” Indigo cheerfully asked while inspecting the vehicles.
The others started looking at the carriages with awe, but Mayra was confused.
“We just walked past hundreds of these. Why couldn’t we use one of those?”
“They locked,” Indigo responded. These locked too, but keys easier to find.”
The homunculus sighed longingly as she ran her hands over a sleek red carriage with a leather roof. Mayra could tell that Indigo wanted to choose it, but it was clearly too small to fit all of them.
Eventually Indigo settled on one of the larger carriages that she referred to as a van. After a moment’s fiddling with the door to the building, Indigo disappeared inside for a few minutes before coming back out to show them an ornate key attached to a small chain.
“This place sell cars,” she informed them, as she used the key to open a small hatch on the lower end of the van-carriage. She pulled out a large broken mana crystal from the vehicle, and replaced it with a brightly glowing one of her own. “Batteries are broken, but cars still work. Find good batteries is hard. Find key for other cars is very hard. But I have battery, and find key here is easy.”
Indigo closed the hatch, and used the same key to unlock one of the doors at the front. Mayra couldn’t see what she did inside, but a loud click followed shortly after, and Indigo announced that the doors were unlocked. Then she stepped back out and summoned a light spray of water to clean off the glass windows while the others looked inside.
The interior of the vehicle was utilitarian in design, but more finely padded than any noble’s carriage she had ever been in. The floor even had a rug! Mayra filed away all of what she was seeing. The empire had long known what these carriages were, but they had never gotten one to work, and most had given up on trying centuries ago. How many mages guilds had a perfectly functional one sitting in their vaults without them realizing it? They had been so focused on the complex construction, that they had assumed that using one must have been just as complicated.
When they had all gotten in, Indigo showed them how to open and close the doors, and use the buckles that helped them stay in their seats. She made them repeat each action several times before she was confident that they understood it.
“Path to home is clear. After that, probably zombies. You need know how get out of van fast.”
The spears had been lain out in the center of the carriage, with Mayra, Corlo, and Haylen sitting in the back, and Kearse joining Indigo up front. Their packs had been placed in remaining empty seats in the back.
Mayra could hear a low hum when the vehicle started, and the wicked grin on Indigo’s face hinted that their surprises for the day were only beginning.
After a moment to adjust mirrors and a few of the dials up front, there was a lurch of motion and the carriage started to move. Everyone but Indigo grabbed on to the nearest sturdy object, and watched the scenery outside the windows begin to change.
The carriage turned, and Indigo pulled out onto the road.
“I know the roads are smooth, but this thing isn’t shaking at all! And it’s so fast!”
Mayra knew that for the rest of her life, no normal carriage would be able to compare to this. The speed and comfort of their ride was incredible! She almost felt like she were flying. Then Indigo directed the van up a ramp, and onto one of the large roads that stood on pillars, towering over the smaller streets around it. Now she truly felt like she was flying, and it was terrifying.
Around her, Mayra could see that Haylen and Corlo likewise had a death grip on their seats, and Kearse up front was moaning like a cursed. His view through the front window was better than theirs, but he didn’t seem to be enjoying it.
Indigo was enjoying it. She was enjoying it very much, and her cackling giggles at their reactions filled the van for almost ten minutes.
Eventually, they adjusted to the speed, and looked out the windows in wonder as the city passed them by. At this speed, Indigo said it would take them a bit less than an hour to reach the other side of the city. Occasionally they would pass carriages that had crashed and were clearly damaged, but they were easily driven around, and Indigo barely slowed.
After twenty minutes, Haylen broke the reverie, sounding concerned.
“What’s that?”
“What is what?” Indigo asked. She still didn’t slow down, but glanced to the side to look for whatever it was Haylen had spotted.
“I can’t see it anymore. One of the buildings is in the way. It looked like smoke. But it was very black and I could see it clearly, even through the miasma.”
“Shit. How far away?”
Indigo increased the speed, and started looking out the side window as often as she looked at the road ahead.
“I don’t know. A kilometer maybe. The miasma makes it hard to tell distances, and the way the smoke was so clear just made it harder. Do you know what it was?”
Indigo sounded annoyed when she answered.
“Black smoke come from Tank. He boss monster like Flock. He stupid asshole. If kilometer, is no problem.”
Indigo spent the rest of the drive telling them about the “boss monsters” of the necropolis. By her definition, they were the apex predators of the city. Other monsters gave them a wide berth, and only the cursed were mindless enough to wander into their territories without reason.
First was Flock. Mayra had seen the birds already, and while she knew they were smart, she hadn’t realized how frightening they could be. Flock had thousands of bodies but only one mind, Indigo said, and if she wanted something dead, it didn’t live long. Haylen and Kearse shared a look at that point, but Haylen just shook her head and Kearse kept silent. Mayra didn’t like the idea that one of the necropolis’ most powerful entities thought of the expedition as little more than a street food vendor. Still, at least Flock didn’t think of them as the food.
Second, was a thing called Snake. It lived in the tunnels beneath the necropolis and never came out. At the same time, those tunnels extended across the entire city, and there was no telling when he might be watching from the shadows of one of the many entrances. Indigo didn’t know very much about him. He never came up to the surface, and she never needed to go below. She had only seen him up close once, and said he looked like “a shadow made solid” and that it was in the shape of a long worm or snake.
Mayra was beginning to think that Indigo didn’t have the best naming sense, but didn’t want to interrupt. She wished she had something to take notes with, and regretted not bringing any more supplies than she had.
Snake was known to the expedition, but their knowledge was just as limited. People on patrol had occasionally reported seeing the tunnel entrances grow darker, but nothing had ever come out. Like Indigo, they had decided that anything willing to stay out of their way could be left alone in favor of killing the cursed.
“I saw Snake once.” Corlo told them. “It was my first expedition, and I was on body burning duty. On the street corner outside the arena, there are stairs leading down to the tunnels. One of the other soldiers, I forget his name, dared me to go down as many of the steps as I could. I had only placed a foot on the first step when the bottom filled with shadows. There were two large points that were darker than the rest, and I knew that it could see me.”
“I couldn’t move from the fright, and the other soldiers started laughing at me. They couldn’t see it, and I was too scared to make a sound. Then one of them came up to try and show off, and he could finally see why I had stopped. He pulled me away from the steps, and we all ran back to the camp, praying that whatever was down there didn’t follow. Luckily for us, it didn’t, and nobody was willing to try to beat my record of a single step down those stairs.”
Haylen and Indigo got a good laugh out of it.
“All three of them have been in this city too long. That sounded like something from a horror story, and they’re treating it like a joke. At least Kearse looks properly concerned. I’d hate to be the only one out here with any common sense.”
Last on the list of boss monsters was Tank. In Indigo’s words, Tank was, “a big stupid fucking asshole.” She said the thing itself looked like a dozen cars that had been crushed into the shape of a very angry gorilla, and that the smoke Haylen saw came from the rows of spike-like pipes on its back. Luckily, it was only slightly smarter than the zombies and mostly limited itself to the central part of the city. The road they were on passed by the edge of Tanks territory, and he would crush anything that wandered in, be it zombie, monster, or expeditionary soldier.
There was a variety of other creatures in the necropolis, but they weren’t as unique or powerful as the first three. Indigo told them about slimes that roamed around the port, giant spiders that laid their eggs inside the bodies of the cursed, and packs of hairless dogs that lived in the old parks. The cursed may have been by far the most numerous of the city’s denizens, but there were always new nightmares waiting to be found.
However, just as Indigo had promised, the route to her home was practically empty, and at the speed they were traveling, the few cursed they did see were soon left behind. A few turns later, and they had been thrown off the trail entirely. It was only a few minutes after leaving the large upper road that the carriage slowed down and stopped.
In front of them was a wide metal cylinder shaped building. There were no windows or doors visible. Only a long ladder and a few thick pipes led up to its roof. Indigo said it had been a water tower, a rain barrel large enough to supply thousands of people.
Mayra was no military strategist, but even she could see why Indigo had chosen this place. It was solidly built and defensible, but most of all discreet. As long as Indigo didn’t call attention to herself, an entire horde of zombies could walk by without realizing that she was inside.
“Home sweet home,” Indigo said with a flourish.
It was time to see where the homunculus lived.