Inside a private room within Klata City’s courthouse, two men sat across each other, neither of them was smiling.
One of them wore exquisite clothes of a deep burgundy color, adorned with gold and silver. His hair was blonde and his eyes had an eerie greyish-blue tone that he often used to his advantage when staring at other people. He had wide shoulders and strong build, his stern face had few wrinkles and a neatly trimmed beard.
Klata’s City Lord, Harold Bareas. 50 years old, a Sword Master from a long tradition of Martial Lords that had ruled Klata for hundreds of years. While his family had long since grown accustomed to politics and ruling, they had never left behind the traditions of combat and hard training regime. He was, first and foremost, a warrior.
In front of him, a lean hoary-headed old man with a slightly hunched back sat while supporting his hands on a wooden cane. He wore a priest’s clothing; his ample robe was white with a stylish blue pattern over it that signaled his high position within the religious order. This man was the head of the Church’s branch in Klata, Bishop John Tharnell.
Different from the City Lord’s stern expression, Bishop Tharnell’s face was grim. His hooded eyes were filled with worry and it seemed he had spent several days without sleeping.
“So you are telling me that’s the reason why the priests didn’t help fight off the undead and haven’t helped in the healings of the sick and wounded for a whole week? You lost your powers?”
Harold leaned forwards, his face inscrutable. There were many religious orders in the continent serving a number of different gods in a pantheon of almost 20 deities, but each country had more or less managed to organize their religions into united groups. Likia Kingdom’s Church worshipped a pantheon of four gods:
Fero, the God of Battle.
Baraka, also called the Giver, Goddess of Gifts.
Linara, the Goddess of Ends.
Karu, the God of Light.
The Clerics of the church, both the healers and the fighters, used their connection with their patron deities to call upon supernatural powers and use a special brand of magic that they called Miracles.
And if for a whole week they hadn’t been able to call upon any miracle, the implications were… severe.
Harold had noticed the strange movements of the Clerics when all of a sudden they had stopped preaching and halted the healing services, locking themselves in the quarters of their Order; but the City Lord had thought that they were in some conclave or preparing for some special ceremony.
Now it was clear that the situation was much worse than he had imagined.
“We don’t know what happened, but we all felt it at the same time. The bridges are broken, Harold. We can’t access our link to the Gods and they no longer answer any prayer, no matter what ritual we perform.”
The Bishop’s words were marked by grief and despair. He was in the border of resignation, there was no warning for this situation and there were no answers to all their questions. The high-ranking officers of the Church had communicated with each other, and it was immediately made clear that this situation wasn’t exclusive to the Clergy in Klata, but to every priest in the country.
Further reports indicated that the same was happening in the whole continent, and the religious orders were in the border of an abyss of massive panic.
The upper echelons had managed to maintain order for now, convincing their brothers and sisters to be patient and exercise forbearance in the face of adversity and the tests from the Gods.
But how long could that last?
“And there are no explanations as of why?”
The City Lord pressed on, his hard gaze locked on the Bishop. John shook his head in denial.
“Nothing concrete so far. It could be they are testing us, or that something happened that is interfering in our connection with them, though we have no idea what that could be. We still have our Classes and some Skills are still usable, but the greatest Miracles have become unavailable. The grimmest opinions are that the Gods might have abandoned us, and the outright blasphemous claim that they died.”
Tharnell replied bitterly, his face twisted in anger and fear when he said the last part. It was the most horrendous scenario, and yet each time he thought about that grim possibility something inside him told him that it was a very real and likely scenario, impossible as it had seemed to him all those years ago when he joined the Church.
Now that impossible scenario reeked of truth, and it was frightening.
“And what do you think, Bishop?”
Harold asked again. His face was stern but impassible, displaying none of his thoughts on the matter.
He had summoned the Bishop to find out about the situation with the Priests and seek an explanation for their lack of help in fighting the undead and healing the wounded. Finding out that they had lost their ability to call upon the Divine Light for their Miracles was something he had never imagined.
It meant that the Church had effectively lost most of their military, political, and tactical value for the Kingdom. They could no longer be the same fighting force, could no longer sway public opinion with their speeches and Miracles, and they could no longer be used as a medic unit during campaign nor perform public service if they were no longer capable of any healing.
The changes within the Kingdom and the entire continent would be large, and a lot of adjustments would need to be made in both in military doctrine and in the management of the cities.
But the City Lord doubted the members of the Church would just stay put and quietly disappear, they still had a number of Skills and a lot of experience managing different tasks, they could still be useful, although a heavy modification would have to take place.
And before that could happen, there would be a period of chaos and panic, Harold was very clear that people driven to despair were capable of causing great havoc, so he would have to take some measures to ensure order and safety within the city.
Bishop Tharnell was clear of that, but he could not blame the City Lord for taking measures, Tharnell and the other high officials of the Church would also take measures to prevent madness and chaos within their ranks.
“I do not know, City Lord. It’s too early to be certain, but those possibilities scare all of us. If the Gods are… gone, no one knows what will happen with the world.”
The Bishop replied in a dispirited voice. He was in the border of falling apart.
The City Lord let out a long sigh and stood up, silently inviting the older man to do the same.
“I think we are done for now. Will you join us in the interrogation of the Necromancer?”
Tharnell stood up and negated with his head, then gave a small bow towards Harold. The interrogation would be carried in public with members of the City Council present to judge and take any decision. As the Head of the Church in Klata City, Bishop Tharnell held a seat in the Council.
“Please excuse me. I cede my vote on any decision to you, I must attend to my duties in these desperate times, and I doubt any of the Priests is in the mood for this show of politics. I will join my fellows in prayer one more time and then we will start our own council to debate our course of action. I’ll inform you of any development.”
“I understand.”
They both left the office, meeting a middle-aged Priest just outside the door. He was the personal escort of Bishop Tharnell, his face was schooled into a mask of calm, but the way his hands trembled every now and then betrayed his inner turmoil.
“Take care, Tharnell.”
“You too, Harold.”
They took their separate ways, the Priests leaving the courthouse as Harold walked to one of the biggest rooms in the entire building. Once inside, he found a group of influential people waiting inside despite the early hour, they probably hadn’t gotten much sleep after the attack of last night.
After a round of cursory greetings, Harold made his way to the highest seat in the room, reserved for the City Lord. The other people in the room were members of the City Council.
Some adventurers and common citizens would probably start to arrive soon.
Harold turned his head and ordered one of the guards to bring the Necromancer. He wasn’t particularly fond of the shows, facades, and schemes of politics, but such things were a necessary tool to efficiently manage a city as large as Klata.
The guard saluted and quickly left to carry on his orders. Time to get to the bottom of this matter; that Necromancer, while not necessarily the direct responsible of last night’s attack to the city, was definitely aware of something.
It was time to find out exactly what it was.
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He was sitting in a throne, carried on the shoulders of servants as strong armies hailed him. The people shouted praises, celebrating their King’s victory.
But he quickly noticed that the praises were not for him.
The shining armor of his soldiers turned old and rusted. The people’s faces rotted and their skin fell off, revealing yellowed bones.
They were not hailing him but the ghost over his head. And like a puppet, he moved by the will of the Revenant. Bringing war, death, and madness.
Something appeared from out of nowhere. Wielding power beyond imagination, a man with eyes like the stars in the heavens overturned the world.
A Sovereign from beyond this world proclaimed his victory with a single sound.
The world knelt and the dream was broken.
The horde of death became ashes and Eric was freed.
The Deity smiled, and everything went dark.
Eric woke up from that strange dream.
He was bound in chains, his throat was dry and his whole body hurt, especially his head.
Words were echoing in the back of his head, barely out of his range of comprehension. He tried to make sense of them, but the headache had him dizzy before he could make any serious attempt.
Eric took a moment to reorient himself and check the state of his body. He turned his head to take a look around and immediately stopped, regretting that he even did it.
The headache was killing him. Eric closed his eyes and laid his head down again.
He took a deep breath, opened his eyes again, and slowly took in his surroundings.
He was in a cell, likely underground. There were shackles on his hands, he still had all his clothes, but his equipment was gone.
His wand, rings, and any magical object in his possession was inside his bag of holding, as they could have messed with the ritual, whoever had put him in this cell had taken the bag of holding. His daggers and other trinkets that he kept in his pockets and strapped on his legs and arms were all gone too, taken by whoever had put him here.
Luckily, he still had his most secret tools: needles, picklocks, and small blades that he kept under his skin. Most people underestimated the uses of Necromancy, they ignored how a body truly worked and could be used. But Eric had been taught the rough way that one needed to be prepared for harsh situations.
He had bruises and slight cuts on his arms and legs, probably due to falling to the ground and being handled roughly while he was unconscious.
And whoever put him here had even cast multiple spells on him as he was unconscious. Eric could feel the aftereffects of Sleep and Paralysis spells. He must have been asleep for over six hours.
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With a grunt and suppressing a groan of pain due to the headache, Eric sat up on the bed. A simple, unadorned bed in a decrepit underground stone cell with a solid iron door.
“How quaint.”
Eric muttered sarcastically as he stood up. He tried to circle his mana but found it sluggish. So they had applied restrictions on his Mana pool too? At least they weren’t complete fools.
Getting out of that place was going to prove a real challenge without any weapons and without spells. His little tools could get him out of the shackles, and maybe help him take down one or two guards, but not fight the armed guards that were bound to be outside.
If there was any way to get back his belongings, Eric would try. But he didn’t have much hope of that, better to make plans assuming that he couldn’t recover his equipment.
There was a booming echo in the back of his mind waiting to be heard. Had someone sent him a Message Spell while he was unconscious?
If someone was just sleeping the Message would awake them, but if the unconscious state was due to exhaustion or external forces then the Messages would be relayed to the subconscious and could be activated later on, dissipating upon being read by the conscious mind.
Eric had more urgent things to do, like figuring how to get out of the cell, but he was curious about the Message.
Besides, he wouldn’t be able to get anywhere with a mind-numbing headache disrupting his concentration, and the Message could provide some clues about his current situation, so he decided to lean against the stone wall and closed his eyes, letting the Message run its course.
Eric noticed at once that this wasn’t any Message Spell, or at least it was some variation he was unaware of.
The first sensation was one of warmth, alleviating the pain in his head. His mind was clearer, and the fuzzy memories were being cleared of the strange fog that covered them.
Eric’s memories of the previous night were fuzzy, even the whole week seemed strange now. It all started after carrying out the ritual to gain control of the undead in the Crypt.
He remembered obtaining great strength, even a temporary grasp on the Dungeon’s array had provided him with great boosts. He remembered being capable of commanding a vast horde of undead at the same time, and the feeling of ecstasy.
Only now he realized that it didn’t seem like the ecstasy was his own. More than the pride from succeeding in his research, he had been feeling excited about being alive and free, as if he had been a prisoner for a very long time.
Those emotions felt strange… foreign, even. Like they weren’t his own.
His foggy memories ended with him going out of the Crypt, killing the adventurers that were in the area, commanding the undead, and fantasizing about taking over Klata City, even starting a war against the Kingdom and founding a new nation of undead.
Why had he even thought about that?
He wanted to show his success to the Mages’ Guild, to prove that Necromancy could achieve great things and not just be a dark perversion of Sorcery used as a weapon against the living. He didn’t want to destroy the Kingdom, he wanted to prove he was right.
Sure, he hated the politics of the Kingdom and the restrictions he suffered from both the Adventurers’ Guild and the Mages’ Guild. He resented a lot of people for the discrimination and humiliation he had suffered over the past years. But he didn’t want to kill them.
Okay, he had thought about killing those annoying bureaucrats and the ignorant people who sided with them, maybe once or twice… or a hundred times.
But he wasn’t seriously planning to do it, not like last night, when he had led an entire horde of undead against the city in order to exact revenge against the entire population.
That wasn’t like him.
He had killed people before, it was a violent world and even the powerful Likia Kingdom hadn’t managed to take complete control and supervision over everything in its territory, so there were groups of bandits and outlaws everywhere. Besides that, Necromancers weren’t exactly welcomed by most; many people were beyond hostile and outright attempted to kill him as soon as they found about his Class.
He had killed in self-defense, competing for resources in Dungeons, and in other conflicts due to a wide variety of reasons.
But he never attacked unprovoked, nor would he hurt innocent bystanders. People could talk all they wanted about Necromancers, but Eric wasn’t a sociopath. Even his most bizarre experiments were done on undead, and never on people he had killed.
Eric had made many enemies during his life, some who were still out there looking to take his life, he wasn’t exactly an honorable and upright citizen of the Kingdom, but he wouldn’t unleash undead on people who had nothing to do with him.
That was madness.
Yes, madness. That’s exactly what it was, last night. And even this whole week.
Eric realized then, that he had been under external influence.
His whole body trembled and his blood ran cold as the fog in his memories dispersed further. He hadn’t just been influenced, he had been possessed. And under possession, he had commanded the undead to attack the city, a horde of thousands.
Was that it? The undead had attacked Klata under his command, and he had been defeated, made prisoner in the cells?
How many people had been killed because of him? How many had been injured?
No, it wouldn’t make sense for them to just subdue him. Besides, he didn’t have any wound on him.
The strange sensation coming from what he had initially thought to be a Message Spell was getting even stronger now, as he desperately tried to make sense of the situation, trying to remember the events of the previous night.
I went outside. I led the undead. I sat on a throne of bones and proclaimed myself King of Death. The horde was marching and was discovered by the City’s Watch. I ordered them to breach the walls and kill everyone inside, and then…
And then what?
Eric felt as if something inside his head broke, but not in a painful way, it was like hearing an envelope being torn in the distance.
Memories started to flood his mind. Not from his point of view but from somewhere above the scene.
Scenes of a meeting outside the Dungeon. As Eric was possessed by a Revenant, a strange Magus had appeared in front of him and stopped him from attacking the city.
He hadn’t stopped the undead, he had just stopped Eric. And he wasn’t just a Mage, that… being was so much more.
It was the closest thing Eric had ever seen or felt that could be considered to be a Deity.
Eric had fallen unconscious after meeting the mysterious man, but the memories inside his mind were showing what happened afterward.
That was the delayed Message, the echo in the back of his mind, this Entity had planted the information inside Eric to show him the events of the previous night.
Eric’s entire body trembled as he remembered the sensation of that being’s gaze over him, the burning feeling and the strange liberating sensation afterward.
The Revenant had been exorcized and destroyed, but its power was preserved into a black bead, a bead that had been placed inside Eric’s body.
Then the powerful being had explained his actions, the reasons behind his interference. And then he had left, leaving Eric on his own to be captured by the Watch of Klata City.
Fate and changing the future, eh?
Eric thought with chagrin. He had never been one to think much about Destiny, but now he was seriously considering changing his outlook on life.
Eric sat there, absentmindedly staring at the opposite wall. A small chuckle escaped his mouth, quickly turning into hysterical laughter.
All of that was ridiculous, now that it was clear what had happened.
Petty ambitions, delusional boasts of glory, dreams of figuring out the secrets of Life and Death… everything was so small, so fragile, so weak!
Eric had been possessed and about to become an undead monster under the control of some ghost from the Dungeon’s Crypt, a mere puppet incapable of doing anything as his body was used as an instrument to bring ruin to others.
And then that person had appeared and released Eric with barely any effort.
The whole lore of legends and compendium of magic that Eric had collected and studied during his entire life was less than dust in front of a single word from that strange individual!
A single snort from that… from that Entity, for there could be no other way to name him, had shattered Eric’s entire world and remade it anew.
Wasn’t that frustrating? Weren’t all the petty affairs of mortals, all the wars and all the magic research completely meaningless?
There was such an unopposable and absolute power out there, and Mages were still fantasizing about chasing the shadow of a fragment of that magnificence Eric witnessed last night.
That was the real deal, a true Archmagus, or what Eric imagined an Archmagus would be like.
That wasn’t some distant and abstract concept like the strange source of the powers the Priests used for their Miracles, two dozen different patrons for their prayers and even more ways to worship them, and yet they all wielded slight variations of the same core Skills, Eric refused to believe there were actually that many gods overlooking the world and granting blessings.
But this was different.
It was a real, living and direct-involving being of great power walking among the mortals, taking action to prevent a grim fate and helping people.
And wasn’t that just hilarious? Oh, the irony of the proud and mighty rulers of land and wielders of magic. They were mere dust, and Eric knew it now.
“Who would have thought, that I would meet a Deity last night.”
Eric shook his head many times. He steadied his breath and stopped his laughter, yet he could not stop smirking. The manic grin on his face wouldn’t go anywhere any time soon.
He focused on remembering the words of that Entity, committing them to memory, word by word. They were branded forever on his mind.
“So you don’t want me to kill and use the undead to create a kingdom of death. Well, obviously that’s a stupid thing to do. Yet you let them go and attack the city and left me there to be captured. Hehehe, you have a plan, don’t you? There’s an objective for all this.”
Eric snorted and passed a hand over his ruffled hair. It was obvious that such powerful Entity possessed abilities beyond Eric’s knowledge, even capable of seeing the future and altering it at will.
Then, each of that being’s actions would surely be part of some plan. Even telling Eric not to follow any plan could be a step of a plan, influencing Eric to take one choice or another.
To make things worse, Eric didn’t know what the plan was or what choice had that Entity predicted, or if it had even predicted all possible courses of action. Just thinking about such things was sending Eric’s mind into an endless loop of possibilities and complex scenarios. It was frustrating and annoying him.
Could that being be watching Eric right now?
Could it be listening to his thoughts? Whether that was the case or not was outside Eric’s control, so he decided to not think about that or he would just go crazy.
“Damn, I feel tempted to try it after being told not to, just to screw with your plan. But I’m not so foolish as to contradict such an overwhelmingly superior opponent. However, I’m not a slave. Thank you for exorcizing that Revenant, but I’m going to live my life my own way.”
Whatever else you do from now on is up to you, bye.
The last part of the powerful being’s words resounded one last time in Eric’s mind.
“Yeah, you are damn right about that.”
Eric murmured, a bit calmer. At least that person didn’t seem to be interested in taking any direct approach over Eric for now.
Any future course of action would have to wait since he was still trapped inside a cell. So Eric decided to leave that thought for later and focus on the issue at hand: How to get the hell out of that Cell?
His Mana pool was restricted, but it seemed his captors hadn’t noticed the black bead of energy inside his body.
That could very well be the chance Eric needed to escape from his current predicament.
However, before Eric could experiment with it, the door of the cell opened with a loud noise and a guard took a cold look at him.
“You are awake? Good. Get up, it’s time for you to answer some questions.”
The guard didn’t await any response from Eric and grabbed him by the collar of his robes and brusquely got him out of the cell.
His interrogation was about to begin.
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Sarai walked fast, ignoring the splash of rain as her boots stepped in some puddles on the street.
By the time she reached the large building that served as the courthouse of Klata, she was drenched.
Spending even a few moments outdoors under the weather was a sure way to get all of one’s clothes soaking wet, but Sarai didn’t care much about it. She didn’t mind getting her clothes wet and dirty, a couple of years as adventurer fighting monsters and many nights camping outside were enough to beat that out of anyone.
Besides, there was a quick and affordable way to get oneself dry: magic.
Upon entering the courthouse, Sarai walked to one side. A group of people equally or more soaked were standing together in front of a Mage next to a wide stone board full of arcane symbols, held in place by a tripod.
She gave a silver coin to the Mage and joined the group.
After waiting a minute and seeing that there wasn’t anyone else coming, the Mage activated the board, making all the runes on it start shining.
A wave of magic covered them, and Sarai could feel the water covering her body being lifted and pulled away from her. A current of warm air blew off and circled around the group of wet customers, quickly and effectively warming their bodies and drying their clothes.
Sarai thanked the Gods for whoever had been the genius to invent that thing. Ever since it had come from Hykei about a decade ago, this artifact had been used in any big business or important location across the Kingdom whenever there was a downpour.
Magic was the gift from the Gods to make people’s life more comfortable, or so the Priests liked to say. Even if it sometimes smelled weird for a sensitive nose like hers.
Feeling more comfortable now that she wasn’t dripping water, Sarai walked further into the courthouse and asked one of the workers about the interrogation.
There was only one interrogation so showy going on today. There were at least 5 different places where a proper questioning could be carried out, and none of them involved the huge rooms of the courthouse.
The usual procedure would be for members of the City’s Watch to question him inside a separate room either in the military quarters or in an interrogation room inside the jail, but the Mage that had been taken from the proximities of the Dungeon wasn’t being treated as a witness, but a suspect of a crime. More importantly, the City Lord and many of the City Council wanted to make a show from this.
Stupid politics.
Sarai thought with distaste. When an investigation of something so serious as an attack on the city turned into a spectacle, you knew that the City’s local government was full of idiots.
She crossed the gates to the huge courtroom and took a look around before deciding where to sit. On a wooden bench near the public entrance, there some of her fellow Adventurers. She decided to go there and say hello.
“Hey, Sarai. I thought you would be sleeping now, after staying up watching the walls.”
Camile, a B-rank Adventurer greeted her with a smile. She was a Human Rogue, part of a B-rank team, Silver Dream. Sarai usually went solo on her missions, but she was acquaintance and friend of many comrades of the profession.
“And miss this? No, thank you. I can get some sleep later, but I want to hear what this Mage has to say about last night.”
Sarai replied while taking a seat next to Camile. The wooden bench was comfortable, for something that looked so old.
“Rumors say the guy is a Necromancer, one of my buddies was part of the group that found him. Apparently, he was knocked out in front of the Dungeon, and there were marks of the marching undead all around him.”
Max, another member of Silver Dream, commented by the side. He was a tall Human Warrior with brown hair, brown eyes, and tanned skin.
Sarai was about to ask if he had more information when the door on the back of the room opened. All sound in the room died out as two guards entered dragging a man of dark red hair with shackles on his hands.
The prisoner was pale-skinned and tall, he had a lean body covered in black robes, but looking at the way he moved Sarai could tell that he didn’t lack muscle strength. His hair was a mane of dark red curly hair and his pair of deep brown eyes were sharp and constantly moving around as he took in the details of the room.
He’s not nervous, he is alert, vigilant.
Sarai noticed instantly. This man didn’t smell of fear or worry. He smelled of danger, a bit of the sickly sweet scent of the dark magic that animated undead lingered over him, confirming to Sarai that he was a Necromancer.
The man’s head stood tall, he cast a disdainful look at the Adventurers and citizens in the room before turning to the members of the City Council sitting on their high seats.
Sarai noticed the change in his body language instantly, this man despised them.
The guards made him sit on a chair near the middle of the room, the seat where the defendant of a crime would tell their version during a trial.
And yet, this whole trial smells like a stupid show for the masses.
Sarai held back the impulse of letting out any sound and decided to watch how things unfolded. Who knew? Perhaps the politicians would surprise her and actually make something good.
“Let’s begin.”
The City Lord’s voice sounded in the room. His voice was deep and strong, the man carried the air of a disciplined fighter, for all that he was a politician, his Classes were mainly those of a warrior.
Sarai noticed with approval that the man wasn’t fond of this trial either, perhaps there was hope for the City.
And thus, the public interrogation and trial of the Necromancer began.