Ignis opened his eyes, and what he saw surprised him. His surroundings seemed to have changed back to how they were before he had gotten here, the stone dragons still intact and sculpted into the wall, awaiting anyone foolish enough to approach them.
'Hmm...rejuvenation magic? No, a dream? Quite vivid...Must have exhausted too much arcanum', he thought, before he started to notice the sound of steps, coming from the staircase. Not wanting to engage with the entity, though not quite sure if it mattered in a dream, he decided to stand in one of the corners of the room, hoping he would not get noticed.
As the clacking of hard-soled shoes against stone grew louder, Ignis noticed a third clack, as if from either a third leg or a staff.
'Heh, hope it's a mage and not some kinda freak.', Ignis snickered, as he looked at the entrance to the staircase.
Moments later, a figure cloaked in a black robe emerged, their pale, delicate hand clutching a short staff made of dark wood, into the tip of which a skull with ruby eyes had been integrated, with the eyes now illuminating the room in a dim light.
"Eugh, I'll never understand necromancers and their disgusting tastes.", Ignis voiced his opinion out loud, knowing that if this was a dream, no one would hear him.
To his shock, however, the necromancer stopped in their tracks, looking around the room as if to look for whoever had just insulted them. Finding nothing, they continued, now looking at the carvings in front of them, as well as the runes around them, which stretched out into all corners of the room.
"Hah, so this must be it! The Tomb of Heroes! To think that it took me this long to find it...", the necromancer called out in a young, female voice. However, Ignis noticed something off about the voice. It was as if her words were delayed and distorted, as if what he heard was not quite the same of what was actually said.
'Could it be...translation magic? What a peculiar dream...'
However, just as he was pondering about what was going on, another voice called out to the necromancer from the shadows.
"Careful, Mistress! There are traps set in this room."
To Ignis' surprise, the female necromancer was trailed by two Segadors, sentient skeleton soldiers known for their unmatched agility and dexterity among undead and created by a powerful necromancer. Their ability to see arcanum made them perfect at quickly evading attacks and finding the weak points of their opponent, as well as finding and disabling or activating all kinds of magical contraptions.
'Thank God this is a dream, these bastards aren't known as the bane of spellcasters for nothing. Although... I doubt that they would pose any real threat to me...', Ignis contemplated as he made himself even smaller in his corner to make sure that he was not seen.
"Did you really think I would not notice such a primitive mechanism? It matters not, go deal with it!", the necromancer continued in an arrogant tone.
"Of course, Mistress!", the skeletons answered in unison, bowing deeply to the necromancer, before advancing.
Not a sound was heard as the two skeletons approached the wall, and just as the cracks started to form in the wall in the same way they had as Ignis had fought the dragons, the two segadors seemingly vanished, before returning to the side of the necromancer, each of them having one of the gems which served as the eyes of the dragons in their bony fingers. Upon having lost the catalyst which served as the centre-piece of the animation-spell, the dragons ceased their movement immediately, continuing their existence as reliefs inside of the wall.
The necromancer accepted the gems offered to her by her servants and approached the wall in front of her. After tracing her pale, delicate fingers across the wall, she stopped where one would expect the keyhole to a door, the place where the claws of the dragons were about to meet.
She inserted the gems into two small dents at that exact position, causing the wall to shake and a mechanical noise similar to the one at the entrance to sound out. The gems disappeared with a flash, returning to their original position, before the two dragons were pushed to either side of the room, revealing the larger hall behind them. Whatever spell which had caused the door to open now turned on the crystals illuminating the hall one-by-one, slowly revealing it in its entirety.
'Oooh, so that's how you're supposed to get in.', Ignis mentally slapped himself, as he slowly followed the group into the hall. However, before the small group stepped into the hall, a spell circle beneath their feet was triggered, and a faint glow engulfed their leader causing her to tense up. The glow lingered on for a moment, before leaving her again, causing her to exhale sharply, as if having just been forcefully awoken from a long dream.
"A warning? Laughable. As if anyone would just retreat after coming this far.", she chuckled maniacally, as she continued into the hall.
The ceiling was about 4 yards above the ground, making the crystals in the ceiling seem like stars illuminating the sky. Within the hall where a number of stone slabs, with 2 on either side of the path leading towards the last two stone slabs, which were placed like open doors with a gap between them through which one could walk through. They were inscribed with the story of Rainier, the first of the two Liberators of Humanity. It was written in the language of the west, but for some unknown reason, the letters seemed to glow and rearrange themselves once Ignis got closer, translating themselves into the common language. He quickly turned around to see if the Necromancer had noticed this phenomenon, though it seemed like she either ignored it or was oblivious to it.
'Hm... what a peculiar dream this is.', Ignis thought to himself, as he started to read the story.
> Born in the small villages of Léones, Chaprouge and Sanceur, these heroic men and women joined the Liberator of Mankind in his quest to subdue the evils that befell these lands and return it to the people. Their names and deeds of heroism shall forever be remembered; thus, they were recorded in this sanctum. May they rest in peace:
What followed was the name and birthplace of everyone laid to rest in this tomb, as well as their age and the heroic deeds they became known for, such as having protected someone with their own life or having slain a ferocious monster. Ignis heart sank at some of the numbers he saw, with many among them not even surpassing the age of 16. Nevertheless, he continued to read the writings on the remaining stones, as what followed was the story of Rainier:
> During his crusade against the sickness that befell his country, he quickly made himself known as someone worthy of becoming the champion of humanity in the eyes of the Gods, thus receiving their blessings. However, Rainier had inherited a deep hatred for divinity from his father, as he perceived the inaction of the Gods in humanity's time of need as the reason for their impending doom. Thus, he rejected all of their blessing, as they would shackle him to their whims, and asked for the sword of one of their servants instead, a mighty great sword, the weight of which seemed more fit for a giant than a human. Due to Rainier's unusual strength, however, wielding it even one-handed proved to be no problem for him.
>
> On his journey through Ceruceil, he slew many a monster and exterminated those who collaborated with the enemies of humanity. His crusade ultimately led to the throne of Ceruceil's king, a man who had sold his people to the monsters ruling over humanity, as he had hoped that, in exchange for a few sacrifices, they would be spared from extinction. Thus, Rainier decided to usurp the throne and erased all history which made mention of the coward who mismanaged the region for so long. He made the lion his family's insignia, as people likened him to a lion, prideful, and strong, a guardian of mankind, and crowned himself the new king of Ceruceil.
>
> In the following years, he would continue to liberate the north of Corus from the monsters that enslaved its people, though his unforgiving nature and ruthless actions against those who opposed him caused him to become feared by many as a tyrant, not as the saviour he was. Rainier's disrespect towards divinity and his reign of fear led to the Gods appointing one more hero to represent humanity, the daughter of a famous war-hero in the southern parts of the continent, Freya Andrea Sangdracon, to keep Rainier's actions in check. Freya received the relic weapon Balmung, a powerful greatsword said to have once been wielded by a long-forgotten seraph during the Primordial War. She turned out to be the complete opposite of the tyrant of the north, as she was revered by the people she saved, and, despite being offered the crown in more than one country, always refused to be tied down by the position of a ruler, no matter how many times the people begged her for her leadership. Many times, the two heroes would exchange blows with one another, only to be interrupted every time by circumstance.
>
> Their last fight, which ended with the appearance of the black-scaled drake Esuries, a flightless dragon of enormous strength and sheer impenetrable armour of scales, made them realise that despite their differences, they still respected one another as fellow champions of humanity, thus breaking for the last time and going their ways, with Rainier vowing to halt the expansion of his kingdom indefinitely.
And though one would think his story would come to an end by showing the last years of Rainier as a ruler, though none of that, as the story seemed to abruptly end here, as if the writer of this story wanted to wait for it to end before continuing it. However, more writing was found on the final two slabs, though it differed from the clean letters found on the other slabs. The words were much smaller and unevenly sized and the spacing of the text as a whole was off, as if written by someone who tried to scribble letters onto a stone for the first time in their life. It was here, where the necromancer too decided to read what had been written on the slab, before moving forward.
> Here lies Aldric Chevalier of Léones, Hero of Ceruceil, surrounded by his brothers and sisters in arms.
>
> Aldric, I apologize for not having seen past my hatred for the gods and heeding your warnings of the gift which the envoy of Caligo, the Seer clad in yellow robes, had given me in exchange for sparing his life after he insulted the crown by demanding our cooperation in the upcoming succession wars between the demonic clans as was promised by King Raoul IV. As soon as I laid my eyes on the tome filled with sacrilegious knowledge, I saw it as a way of forcing the gods to finally answer to us.
>
> When you arrived before me and spoke of the premonition you received from the Goddess of Fate herself, which spoke of another cataclysm caused by this tome, I only saw red, thinking you had fallen prey to their lies, and started to make plans to spread the information contained within it with the help of merchants all over Corus.
>
> I only managed to copy the knowledge pertaining the Soul-Seal and spells which could extract knowledge hidden in Mana itself before you managed to steal the tome, preventing me from further dooming humanity as a whole. I knew immediately where to find you. The poisoned emerald lake near the mausoleum Léopold had built in the ruins of our old village, the same place where you swore loyalty to me and my cause all these years ago, and the place where we had laid our fallen comrades to rest after the last battle was won.
>
> It took me until now to figure out why informed the Ardent Path of your actions before even trying to convince me further, as I now realise, after so much time has passed, that I might have seemed beyond unreasonable in matters concerning the gods due to my intense hatred for them.
>
> Be that as it may when I confronted you about your treachery, I approached you with the willingness of hearing you out and even forgiving your transgressions if you were to relay your thinking behind your actions, though before any of us could utter a word, spears of light rained down on us, courtesy of the divine executioners, the wretched beings known as Dominions, who demanded we handed over the tome to them. When I saw your body impaled by their spears, I only saw red and destroyed them without even considering what would happen next. Despite being able to destroy most of them, one managed to take the tome from your dying body and flee. I will never forget your last words of apology to me, as the life drained from your face, nor will I ever forget the consequences of my defiance.
>
> As soon as I turned my gaze towards my castle in Hadena, I saw a pillar of light appear in its centre, which slowly grew ever larger, until it became unbearable to look at, causing me to avert my eyes. As soon as I looked back, the green planes and dense forests of Ceruceil were no more, with all having turned to dust. Hadena itself had vanished from the face of the world, and no matter where one looked, nothing remained of the kingdom once referred to as the bastion of humanity, the country we had sacrificed so much for to turn into a safe haven for our friends and families, far away from the evils that plagued this world.
>
> The following years I spent in search of my family, in the hopes that they might have managed to flee before disaster struck, to no avail. My aimless journey ended where it had begun, near the emerald lake where I had left your now withering corpse behind. After I picked you up and decided to move you to rest amongst our brethren inside of the mausoleum, I noticed that your hand was still clutching two of the pages of the sacrilegious tome. I decided to take them and bury them together with your body in the very sarcophagus I had built for myself to rest, together with my beloved Angeline, after our time had come.
>
> Angeline, if you managed to find this message, I left my last words to you in a metal box near the tree where we first met. I am sorry that I could not be there when you needed me most, and also, that I lost my will and stopped looking for you after 2 measly years, though I am filled with hope that you and our children have managed to make it out of all of this alive somehow.
>
> And for you, who has desecrated this tomb to rob it of whatever riches you believe to be found here, I am writing these words to serve as an eternal testimony to my failure as a hero of humanity, as well as a warning for those who think to disturb the final rest of those who were more worthy of this title than I myself, just to attain power not meant for mortal hands. I will remain here until all life has left my body to guard these pages of the sacrilegious tome and protect the hard-earned peace of my fallen brothers and sisters in arms, striking down mercilessly whoever passes by these stones.
>
> Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
>
> Turn back! Nothing but death shall await you beyond this point!
"Tch, what a disgrace. Not only did he reject the gifts of my master, but even turned around to kiss up to the gods once more after they murdered his entire family and loved ones to keep knowledge of their failures a secret!", the necromancer spit on the ground in disgust, then moved onwards, past the stone slabs.
Ignis followed shortly after and was met with the sight of what could only be called an enormous arena, at the end of which a single, at least a yard tall corpse stood before a sarcophagus made of the same stone as its surroundings.
Various skeletal remains littered the arena's floor, indicating those who had attempted to plunder the graves, which had been embedded into the walls of the arena, had all met the same fate. The corpse standing guard had long, dark hair which obscured most of its face, as well as a long, unkempt beard. It was clad in tattered armour, which bore, barely recognisable, the emblem of the royal house of Léones on its front, the head of a front-facing, crowned, roaring lion in front of 3 crossed swords. The corpse seemed to lean on a massive great sword which was placed in front of it, both hands resting on its handle, the tip of it sunken into the floor. Despite the weapon's age and presumed heavy use throughout the years, it showed nary a sign of wear. The left hand of the corpse was covered in a plated metal-gauntlet that reminded one of the claws of a dragon, though shrunken down to fit onto a human.
"Hm... I can feel it. The aura of a Draugr no, a Grave Lord! What power! Could it be Rainier himself?"
As if reacting to his own name, the undead hero opened his eyes, revealing the very same purple glow all reanimated corpses possessed within them, which now poked through his messy hair. The rest of his body started to move as well, as he slowly assumed a fighting stance still used to this day in Ceruceil by its order of knights, though not while handling a great sword:
Bending his knees as if preparing for a sprint, his sword resting on his shoulders with his right hand while his armoured left hand touched the ground, propping his body up. This pose triggered a memory in the wizard's mind, of a female warrior with tanned skin and long, snow-white hair he seemed to have known at some point. Her name, however, would not come to him, no matter how hard he tried. He was ripped out of his thoughts by the shouts of the now much less confident necromancer.
"Servants! Protect me!", the necromancer yelled, slamming her staff into the ground, and two undead creatures slowly materialized from the shadow beneath her.
These two knights the size of a tree, wearing pitch-black full-plate armour and brandishing a longsword in one hand and a tower-shield in the other were known as Death Knights, the strongest among skeleton warriors, which, due to their toughness, specialise in tanking powerful physical attacks. They are even believed to be able to hold their own against an adult drake for a few minutes without problems.
As the segadors moved to assist their tanky comrades, Rainier made his first move, jumping forward and bringing down his longsword in one swift motion. The death knight before him, which had tried to intercept the sword by blocking it with its shield, suddenly ceased its movement completely, having been split cleanly in half together with the shield. The blow of Rainier's sword was strong enough to even shatter the floor beneath it, causing debris to shoot left and right from the impact point and knocking over the approaching segadors. The other death knight managed to reach the former hero and brought down its own sword with speed unbefitting of a being of this size. However, even its beyond comprehensible speed with the sword was no match for the former hero, as he parried every single strike with a strike of his own, before quickly side-stepping its last attack and punching a hole through its shield with his gauntlet, knocking the death knight a few metres away. Before it could recover, it too was silenced by a single swing of Rainier's sword.
"Damn it all, I told you to protect me you useless crétins!", she yelled while pointing her staff at the approaching Grave Lord.
"A mere husk like yourself, defying the will of the Queen of Undeath? Insolent worm! KNEEL!"
A white spell circle formed in front of her as she started to cast the spell known as
"Fuck! Jack! Morgan! Rise from my shadow and aid me in vanquishing this foe!", the necromancer commanded, and two more undead rose from the darkness, a knight clad in full-plate armour made of silvery green adamantite, the hardest non-alloyed metal known to mortals, a kite-shield and a sword in his hands, and a thin corpse with leather-like skin dressed in black robes wielding a dark metal staff adorned with a blue sapphire on its tip, an undead mage.
'Ooh, these guys got names? Necromancers usually don't bother with keeping the personality of undead puppets unless they are powerful enough to warrant keeping them conscious. This could get interesting.', Ignis thought to himself, as he eagerly awaited the two newcomers to join in.
"Oi, segadors, I'll hold him off, you two attack him from the back, old man Morgan behind me is going to support you, ya hear?", Jack yelled out, but immediately after the commands had reached the other skeletons, Rainier snatched one of the segadors' heads with his gauntlet and crushed it, while the other one fell to the hero's sword.
"Well, crap. All buffs on me, Morgan! Let's tussle, hero!", Jack yelled, as he charged the undead hero, while Morgan starts casting five different enhancement spells simultaneously, all of which he aimed at Jack, which caused an impressed whistle to escape the uninvolved wizard observing the fight, as even someone who was only capable of casting three spells at the same time was seen as a genius in the field of spell-casting due to the immense stress it put on one's mind.
A loud clashing sound reverberated throughout the hall as metal connected with metal, as the undead knight tried his best to reach the former hero, who, despite Jack having been hit with the
However, every time Rainier tried to start a counterattack, he was immediately interrupted by a barrage of arcane missiles courtesy of Morgan. Though the spells did not manage to do any significant damage to him, they still bought Jack enough time to continue his assault and at times even slip past the former hero's defences and deal some damage, however shallow it might have been.
Meanwhile, the necromancer had used the diversion she created to approach the sarcophagus, and attempted to open it.
"Hmm, let's see...REVELARE MYSTERIA!"
The
"Hah, not even a spell to block out remote view? How foolish!", she whispered, as she prepared the spell which would grant her insight into the coffin.
It was at this moment Jack tried to side-step Rainier to slip past his gauntlet, when he accidentally tripped on the remains of one of the segadors, causing him to briefly lose his balance, which Rainier exploited immediately by grabbing Jack' sword firmly with his left hand. In the nick of time, Jack raised his shield and diverted the blow of the great sword, which now made its way towards his skull, making it strike the floor next to him with a loud crash instead.
"Gods almighty! It didn't even hit me directly, but I felt my bones tremble from that one!", Jack hissed as he tried to retrieve his sword. Rainier, however, stopped his fruitless efforts, as he simply shattered the blade with his gauntlet.
"That blade was made out of fucking adamantite, what kind of monster are ya?", Jack laments, as he dodged and diverted the incoming sword strikes aimed at him, as Rainier had decided to ignore the damage dealt by Morgan's spells and started to attack relentlessly.
"Oi, boss-lady! Hurry up! We're walking on our last bone here!", Jack yelled out to her as he looked past Rainier to see if she had made any progress yet, while his armour and shield started to resemble scrap metal barely clinging onto him. Noticing that Jack' attention was drawn away from the fight for brief moment, Rainier swiftly went behind the skeleton knight and struck down his supporter with a devastating strike of his sword.
"MORGAN!", Jack shouted in rage as he saw his partner fall in front of him, a scene which triggered the memory of how they both lost their life before being given a second chance by the one who brought them back alive, the late teacher of their current mistress.
No longer caring for the commands of the necromancer in his rage, he charged Rainier with his shattered blade, intending to at least harm the undead for what he had done to his comrade. The Grave Lord, unphased by the angrily shouting warrior, simply flicked his sword and decapitated him.
Having her connection to both of her subjects severed in short succession, the necromancer quickly spun around, which caused her hood to drop, revealing the face of a beautiful young woman. If one were to judge her by her appearance alone, one would believe her to be no older than 20, though her pale, almost porcelain-like skin and the tell-tale purple glow of undeath emitted by her eyes told a different story.
"A Lich? No wonder she was able to control that many high-rank undead without problems. This is getting interesting!", the wizard whispered to himself in surprise.
"Tch, not even your personal bodyguards were able to buy me more than a minute, teacher? How foolish... Disappointing me even beyond the grave, I see.", the undead necromancer noted sardonically as she started to caress the skull on her staff with her free hand, before aiming it at the slowly approaching Rainier.
"Also, I thought I made myself clear earlier. While in my presence, you are to KNEEL!"
And again, a white spell circle appeared in front of her, though this time, the fallen hero did not even flinch in response to
"WHAT! NO! DEFENDAT! AVERTERE! MEDITARI!" she shouted, casting as many defensive spells as she could to try and prevent block the quickly approaching grave lord.
Moments later, the hero struck the undead necromancer with his gauntlet directly in her gut. Ignis could hear a sound akin to windows shattering, the tell-tale sound of defensive spells being broken through with brute force alone, as the necromancer was flung into his direction by the powerful blow.
All Ignis was able to do was raise his arms and close his eyes in panic to shield himself from the impact, as the world around him faded away.
----------------------------------------
Ignis was startled awake yelling, his arms still shielding his face from an impact that never came. Stopping to take a breath, he looked around, noticing that he was in the same place he had been before he drifted off into sleep, the room unchanged and still missing a sphere-shaped part of the wall where the door to the hall used to be.
"What a... realistic dream...", he whispered to himself, as he rose to his feet, his right arm clutching his staff tightly.
Unlike the Necromancer, he did not realise that what he had witnessed was the memory of the one that came before him, recorded by the ancient runes in the floor, though what he knew was that it had indeed happened.
"Well, at least I know what awaits me over there. No sense running away now that I'm already here, I guess.", he mumbled to himself as he stepped forward.
Ignis looked at his hand, balling it to a fist and opening a few times to feel the arcanum flow through it, and, upon deciding he had recovered enough, made his way towards the fallen hero.
'How about it, old man? If not even a lich on the verge of turning into an Ankou, the strongest of undead necromancers, had a chance against the man who used to hunt sentinels in his free time, what could a senile old fool such as yourself do? However, with my help, nothing is impossible. The only thing you have to do is letting me take control once more! ', the voice in his head offered, but despite knowing that this proposal was probably the only way to make it out of this ordeal unscarred, he decided to ignore it out of principal and carried on.
The sight before his eyes differed slightly from what he had seen in his dream. The stone slabs were destroyed, their fragments littering the hall, and massive craters could be found all over the arena. Several skeletons, some in armour, others completely shattered and unrecognizable lay a strew before the corpse guarding the sarcophagus, which looked no different from how Ignis remembered him, except for his missing left arm.
'He truly lives up to the legends. What a frightening person, even beyond death. I better go all out from the start', he thought, as he readied his staff.
As if noticing that he was being challenged, Rainier awakened, assuming the very same stance the wizard had seen in his vision of the past. This time, however, the fallen hero would not fight a necromancer, but one who excelled at exorcising undead beings.
"You don't know what you're in for! ADOLEBITQUE!", he yelled out, with his staff raised as high as he could, as a large, golden spell circle appeared beneath his feet.
A cyclone of golden, radiant flames started to engulf the Grave Lord, growing ever higher and spreading throughout the arena, stopping just about a yard in front of the wizard, as he kept fueling the spell with arcanum. He could hear the distorted screams of the undead and his frantic attempts at dispersing the flames, but the flames kept eating away at him.
Ignis felt his arcanum reserves dwindling at alarming speeds, as the sword of Rainier poked out of the fiery storm, readied to be thrown at the spellcaster in a panicked attempt to end the spell before it was too late. Noticing the incoming threat, Ignis increased the flow of energy supplying the flames, causing the undead to drop his sword as his body succumbed to the golden flames of what Ignis considered to be his strongest spell,
Feeling his mind starting to waver, Ignis decided to end the spell, as even if the undead was still able to move, Ignis would not survive being drained of all of his arcanum either. He struck the floor in front of him, ending the spell and causing the flames to die down as if being extinguished.
The ceiling had gone dark, as the lucranum gems, which had until now dimly lit the hall, had been shattered from the excess arcanum in the air. The only exception was a single hole in the ceiling, seemingly connecting the hall all the way up to the surface, as sunlight now illuminated the charred remains of the fallen hero.
Barely hanging onto consciousness, Ignis approached the corpse of Rainier, which, though still somewhat recognizable, had been mangled and torn apart. Nevertheless, the fallen hero's right hand, which despite all that happened still gripped the hilt of his sword firmly, started to twitch, as if the barely moving corpse intended to continue the fight.
"Hah...Just...just stop. It's over... I'll take care of the rest.", the wizard assured the corpse through laboured breaths. This caused any movement left in Rainier to cease, and the light in his eyes shined brightly for a brief moment.
"Thank...you.", the corpse uttered in a distorted voice, before the light completely left its eyes.
"You're... welcome...", Ignis muttered, before sinking unconscious to the floor.